Two Words to Keep
by ChasingtheCosmos
Summary: A (sort of) season re-write centering around the Doctor's touch telepathy and the many inconvenient ways that it gets between him and his companion, Rose Tyler. This work is based around Season 2 and the Tenth Doctor. It's a sequel to "A Hand to Hold", but can also be read as a stand-alone. This story is part two of three. Originally posted on AO3.
1. The Christmas Invasion (Part One)

It always struck him as interesting, the strange things that the Doctor would notice when he first woke up in a new body. In 900 years and 10 different forms, it still usually managed to surprise him.

His previous body, for example, had been all about the hands - even long before he had first grabbed Rose's and told her to run. He had liked working with them and using them to build new things. He had enjoyed poking and prodding at things and he had had the burn scars on the backs of his knuckles to prove it. It was only natural that he had turned that tactile nature on Rose, as well - always grabbing for her and keeping her as close as possible, even when he knew that he shouldn't.

This new body, however, seemed to be all about the mouth. The first thing that he noticed was the teeth, and he had only just barely set their destination for Barcelona before he was off running about the TARDIS console and chattering away like a madman. He savored the way that each new word felt on his tongue, rolling them around and tasting them like a fine wine.

He didn't even give Rose a chance to get a word in edgewise, though he watched her out of the corner of his eye all the same as he slowly checked over his new appearance - cataloging each new change, for better or for worse. She was watching him with an expression of shocked disbelief that he couldn't really begrudge her, but he had no idea how to address it, so the Doctor was content to keep going on as he was for the time being.

"Go on then, tell me," he finally said eagerly, turning to flash her a wide, excited smile. "What do you think?"

It took Rose a minute to reply, but when she finally did, the Doctor immediately knew that this wasn't going to go over as easily as he had hoped. "Who are you?" she asked timidly.

"I'm the Doctor," he answered slowly, his expression instantly sobering.

But his brilliant, beautiful Rose was nothing if not clever, and he patiently waited as she burned through all of her options and explanations in an attempt to piece together the strange scene that she had just witnessed happen right before her eyes.

"Send him back," she threatened, her voice hard in a way that she had never used with him before. "I'm warning you, send the Doctor back _right now_!"

"Rose, it's me!" the Doctor protested desperately. "Honestly, it's me. I was dying. To save my own life I changed my body - every single cell - but ... it's still me."

"You can't be," Rose insisted, her tone still breathless and disbelieving as she scanned his face for something - _anything _\- that was even the slightest bit familiar to her.

And suddenly the Doctor knew just what to do to make her believe him. He just needed to give her something familiar to grab on to - a glimpse of his past self to convince her that it was still him, standing there in front of her.

He took three steps forward to close the distance between them and be as close to her as he dared. He felt a rush of pride swell in his chest as his brave human girl simply stared him down and didn't so much as flinch away from the new man standing before her.

He quietly reminded her of the first time that they had met in that dark basement in the middle of London. The Doctor only hesitated for the briefest of seconds before acting out the story of his words and taking her hand in his.

His mental shields were completely nonexistent - still rebooting from after the regeneration - but Rose was so guarded and unsure of him in that moment that the Doctor was only able to catch the brief outline of her emotions as she shifted uncomfortably from his touch (but still didn't pull completely away, he was happy to say).

She was afraid - absolutely terrified - and she wanted him back desperately. The Doctor wracked his brain as he fought to find another way to prove to her that he was _right here _in front of her.

Finally, her gaze seemed to catch on something in his expression and she whispered his name in the form of a question - seeking validation.

"Hello!" the Doctor responded cheerily, giving her another wide smile that he wished very much that she would replicate.

But Rose pulled away from him yet again and, even though he didn't really want to, the Doctor let go of her hand and began bouncing about the console again, his mouth chattering away the whole time.

Rose, however, refused to be so easily distracted, and she asked quietly, "Can you change back?"

And that was a stab in the hearts if there ever was one - the Doctor felt the shock and pain of her rejection all the way down to his toes. But how was she supposed to know that such a seemingly insignificant request held such importance? She had only just learned what regeneration was nine-and-a-half minutes ago. He couldn't exactly expect her to understand how painful it was for him to have the love of his lives so blatantly reject his new face.

"Do you want to leave?" he asked after a moment's hesitation.

A look of sheer terror crossed her face then as she asked, "Do you want me to leave?"

"No!" the Doctor answered without a second's pause. The absolute _last _thing he wanted to do was say goodbye to Rose Tyler - not when he had just been so very close to finally admitting his ridiculous, undying feelings to her. Besides, hadn't they been over all of this before? Did she not remember just a few weeks ago when she told him that she was never going to leave and he had told her that he wanted her to stay, or did she simply not trust the words, now that they belonged to a new face?

With a small sigh the Doctor did what he always did when he wasn't sure how to comfort Rose - he changed their destination to the 21st century Powell Estates and promised her a trip to see her mother. But the Doctor's mind was still attempting to settle into this new body and his old habits of seeking and offering comfort were beginning to claw their way to the surface. He had to pin his hands tightly between his arms and his rib cage in order to fight off the sudden, desperate urge to reach out and take Rose's hand again.

He filled the awkward silence with more mindless chatter and suddenly, without him even having to try, Rose was smiling again. It was a small, bemused expression that wasn't even pointed in his direction as she stared glumly down at the TARDIS controls, but it gave him a ridiculous boost of hope nonetheless.

For a moment the Doctor let himself think that maybe - just _maybe_ \- things would turn out alright and Rose might come to accept (and ... dare he hope _love_?) him once more. But those hopes were instantly dashed a few seconds later as a jolt of energy shot through him and cut off his seemingly endless flow of words.

_Wrong, wrong, something is wrong, _his mind screamed as a shot of adrenaline coursed through his veins. _Gotta get Rose home, gotta make sure she's safe, gotta hurry, gotta run, gotta fly ..._

The Doctor was only distantly aware of their crash landing back on Earth, because everything in his head was already crashing and burning and it was becoming difficult to separate his racing thoughts from reality.

All he could remember clearly was that Rose needed to go home - needed to be safe and wrapped up in something warm and familiar.

"Oh! I know!" he exclaimed distractedly to whoever it was that he had grabbed in an attempt to remain upright (_where had he landed, again?_). "Merry Christmas!"

And then the oxygen flow to his brain thinned and the Doctor took a nosedive into the asphalt, passing out in an uncoordinated heap on the ground.


	2. The Christmas Invasion (Part Two)

The Doctor's mind went into an odd, semi-conscious dream-state as the healing coma took over and his body desperately tried to repair itself from the massive amount of damage that the time vortex had caused. His mind spent the idle hours (as it so often did) worrying over Rose.

Was she experiencing any negative lingering effects from the vortex energy? Were her memories returning to her at all? How long would she be willing to wait for him to wake up?

Luckily (or, perhaps, _unfortunately, _depending on how one looked at it), the Doctor didn't have time to ponder about how she was feeling about the whole thing. Rose was at his side constantly, running the back of her hand over his forehead and tentatively running her fingers through his sweat-drenched hair. Every touch of her skin against his was like a sweet melody in his mind, and he reached out helplessly, begging for her to open her mind to him so that he could somehow reassure her.

She was a complete nervous wreck beneath the facade of calm efficiency that she put on for her mother and Mickey. She was filled with frustration and doubt and the Doctor felt like a prisoner in his own useless skin because it was _all his fault _and there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it. And through it all was a hopeless, desperate longing for a man with blue eyes and a leather jacket that she missed so terribly that it made his hearts ache.

_Doctor, where are you? We _need _you_, she begged, her thoughts brushing against his mind as she took his pulse for the fourth time that hour. _I need you ..._

He didn't have to wonder much more about her memory, then, because Rose was suddenly projecting the sensation of their kiss back on the Game Station and it was obvious to anyone with even the slightest hint of telepathic ability that she remembered the scene just as vividly as he did.

What the Doctor _did _wonder about, though, was the sudden strength and power of her projection. Was she doing it on purpose, or had it been on accident? She had let things slip from her mind to his in the past without realizing it before, but none of it had been like _this_. In fact, it wasn't even so much _projection _as it was _connection_, and the Doctor was suddenly reminded of that brief, shining moment of Satellite Five when he had felt her in his head as clearly as though she had been communicating telepathically all her life. Did she even realize what she was doing? And - perhaps the most important question - _how _was she doing it?

But all of those warm, confusing, delightful, dangerous thoughts were suddenly overshadowed by the impending threat of death, because _of course_ he couldn't just give Rose Tyler a happy, normal Christmas.

"Doctor, wake up!" she demanded, her panic instantly breaking through the haze of the healing coma that shrouded his mind.

He felt the familiar weight of the sonic in his hand as noise and chaos broke out around them, but it was Rose's breath on his skin and her desperate plea in his ear that finally awoke him.

"Help me," she said simply.

And, because it was Rose Tyler and the Doctor could never deny her anything even if he tried, he obeyed.

If he had still been in his old body, the Doctor might have wrapped Rose up in a comforting hug - or, at the very least, taken her hand in his as they moved out of her mum's flat to get a better look at the lurking Santa-bots below. But as it was, he simply tucked his hands into his borrowed dressing gown and focused instead on the threat that loomed before them.

The second time he went unconscious under the power of the healing coma, things became even more heightened than they had been before. His mind was disorientated and reaching out blindly for some sort of connection or reassurance. And Rose was there, as she always was, pouring her own uncontrollable desperation into him whenever her fingers slid over his bare skin.

_Wait for me, _he begged her silently, unsure if her answering call to him was a response of sorts, or if she were simply blindly reaching back out of her own need to be reassured. _Don't leave, Rose, please don't leave me ..._

"He's gone," she sobbed, her voice so bereft that it made the Doctor want to scream. Never before had he so wished that he could reverse a regeneration and return to the man that he had been before. But for Rose, he would do anything - and if there were any way in this universe that he could give her that familiar reassurance, he would have done it long ago.

"The Doctor's gone," she continued, her voice tight with tears. "He left me, Mum, he left me ..."

_No, Rose, never, I'd never ..._

But he knew that he already had. He'd abandoned her here alone to deal with the threat of an alien incursion without any tools or backup or information of any sort. If only she could _hear _him as he desperately tried to reach into her mind and make contact. He could feel her mental signature there, just out of his reach. If he could just get her to _listen _...

The Doctor never stopped trying to reach out and breach that final distance to Rose's mind. Even when his consciousness finally began to solidify and right itself within his head, he never once stopped trying to call out to her.

_Rose, Rose, I'm here ..._

There was one quick moment where he felt something in her mind slide into place and there was the briefest of connections between them as she turned towards his mental presence.

_Doctor ...? _she thought in disbelief.

Then the TARDIS doors flew open and he finally had the chance to get a good look at his gorgeous, clever girl again.

"Did you miss me?" he asked cheekily.

Rose's answering smile was like a balm to the Doctor's weary soul and he felt a shock of relief roll through him as he quickly thanked the universe for whatever it was that he had done to deserve her in his life.

There was no more doubt or lingering questions after he soundly and deftly defeated the Sycorax, but there was still a notable distance that remained between him and Rose. His hands were kept constantly busy or tucked away securely in his dressing gown pockets, and if Rose wished for it to be any different, she kept her thoughts to herself as they put a stop to the invasion and sent the hostile aliens packing.

The Doctor spent the rest of the night doing everything within his power to give Rose that normal, human Christmas that he felt she so greatly deserved, and he didn't even care how _domestic _it may have looked. He might have been able to happily live out the rest of his days in that dingy old flat if it meant that he got to do it with her.

But the Doctor couldn't shake the strange, prickling feeling on the back of his neck as they all ran outside to watch the snow (_ash_, he corrected them grimly) fall. He could sense something pulling insistently at his time senses like an itch in a place that he couldn't scratch. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he and Rose were quickly approaching a crossroads in their time streams, and one wrong decision could take Rose away from him - possibly forever.

"And what about you? What are you going to do next?" Rose asked him, fidgeting uncomfortably and refusing to meet his eye.

"Well ... back to the TARDIS, same old life," he replied slowly.

"On you own ...?" she asked awkwardly.

"Why, don't you want to come?"

"Well ... yeah ..."

"Do you, though?"

The Doctor didn't know why he was questioning her when he already had her confirmation in hand, but he needed to be certain - needed to know for _sure_ that she still wanted to be with him as desperately as he wanted to be with her.

"Yeah!" Rose replied quickly, no longer hesitating as she looked eagerly up at him.

"Well ... I just thought ... 'cause I changed ..." he muttered haltingly.

"Yeah," she cut him off, "I though 'cause you changed ... you might not want me anymore ..."

_Not want Rose Tyler? _The very idea was ridiculous to him. How could she even think such a thing? Had her faith in him really been so badly shaken that she had forgotten all of the promises that they had made to one another?

The Doctor's fingers itched to reach for her, to fill her mind with all of his (many, _many_) wants and desires, but even in this moment he managed to restrain himself. This new body was all about words, but in that moment, the Doctor found himself struggling to find the right ones to say. He knew already that there were really only five that he absolutely, desperately needed to tell her - five words that would change their lives forever.

But this wasn't the time for those words. Not yet, anyway. So instead, the Doctor gave Rose one last offer of safe and familiar as he extended his hand towards her - hoping beyond hope that she would understand that it wasn't just his hand that he was offering her, but his own two hearts served up on a silver platter, just for her.

"That hand of yours still gives me the creeps," she admitted with a teasing smile.

The Doctor only grinned and wiggled his fingers at her - his need to touch her skin a physical, burning pain within him. When she finally relented, he immediately felt the same way that he had back on the Sycorax ship - like something between them was firmly and solidly locking into place. It still wasn't a full mental connection - not yet - but it was like an echo of one, and it made his hearts skip a beat as they smiled at each other and he felt her thoughts tentatively turning towards his.

"So, where're we going to go first?" she asked quietly.

_Anywhere_, he replied silently. And he knew that she probably wouldn't be able to hear him, but he thought that maybe she just might be able to catch the impression of his thoughts anyway. _Anywhere, Rose Tyler, as long as it's with you._


	3. New Earth (Part One)

The Doctor was itching with the need to run once more - to officially break this body in and see the wonders of the universe anew - so when they finally headed out and planned to depart from Earth once more, he immediately set their destination for further than they'd ever gone before. he might have also been trying to top himself in a childish attempt to impress a certain Miss Rose Tyler, but (even if that were _true_) he wasn't about to admit that to anyone - least of all himself.

But it was all worth it just to be able to feel her leaning her full weight against his arm and smiling up at him as though the Doctor had somehow created the entirety of this planet just for her enjoyment.

"Can I just say ... traveling with you ... I love it," Rose murmured sincerely.

There was another odd flare of something between them, then, that made the Doctor's hearts skip a beat. It was something that he had never experienced before - something that blinked like a warning light in the back of his mind - but he pushed it forcefully to the back of his mind and stubbornly ignored it. It was his first trip out with Rose and he was _determined _to make it a good one.

"Me, too," he replied emphatically. "Come on!" The Doctor took her hand without any further warning and tugged her down the rolling apple grass hills. He still hadn't been able to convince himself to raise his mental shields again, and as her flash of excitement jolted through her skin and tingled along his spine, he wondered if he would ever actually force himself to get around to doing that.

Rose insisted on taking a moment to lie out and enjoy the view and he didn't have it in him to deny her, so they rolled out his old coat and stretched out side-by-side with one another. Still, the Doctor couldn't seem to stop himself from filling their idle moments with words, and Rose - clever girl that she was - used the opportunity to remind him of their "first date".

"We had chips," he mused, easily remembering that day from not so very long ago when he had first begun to admit to himself that this special, beautiful, _fantastic _girl was so incredibly different from any other person he'd ever met in 900 years of space travel.

"You're so different," she admitted, unknowingly echoing his own thoughts as she peered intently down at him. The way she was scanning his features made him feel as though she were trying to catch a glimpse of blue in his now-dark-brown eyes and the thought left him feeling torn.

"New new Doctor," he supplied teasingly in an attempt to lighten the mood.

Rose laughed, just as he had intended for her to do, and the dangerously tense moment immediately dissipated into one of easy companionship once more.

But they weren't there for simple sightseeing, as much as the Doctor may have wished for it to be otherwise, and they didn't get very far into the futuristic alien hospital before they were immediately separated. The Doctor wasn't worried, though - they had spent a lot of their time traveling apart. It was one of the reasons why they worked so well together as a team - they were good at dividing and conquering.

But this time, when Rose returned to him, he could feel that something was ... _off_. Each time his hand would brush against her arm he could feel a sour sort of sensation in the pit of his stomach that he never would have associated with Rose before. Add that to the strange new way that she was carrying herself and the odd way that she was speaking to him and the Doctor had a pretty good idea that something _bad _was about to happen.

He didn't know just how bad the situation was, though, until Rose's hands were around the back of his head and her lips were slamming against his in a long, crushing kiss and everything inside of him was screaming, _wrong, wrong, wrong_!

The Doctor's mind reached for hers on instinct, eager to reestablish the connection that they had had the last time he had kissed her and the time vortex had been streaming between them, but his thoughts slid uselessly against what felt like a glass wall - an invisible, restrictive barrier that was keeping him separated from Rose. She pulled away before he could make sense of what it was, but the Doctor was fairly certain that the warm, glowing light that he had come to associate with Rose's mind was somehow locked away behind that invisible wall.

He tried very, _very _hard to keep his wits about him as he watched her flushed, breathless expression and forced himself to focus on the sensation of that barrier in her mind and _not _her blown pupils and perfectly pink lips ...

But there was no denying it, so he went ahead and admitted it out loud to himself as Rose finally stepped away and left him dumbfounded in her wake, "Yep, still got it."

It didn't take him much longer to uncover all of the nasty little secrets (including a basement full of sick humans and one persistent flap of bitchy skin) buried underneath the New New York hospital, and with Rose's mind on the line, the Doctor found that he was working at what felt like double the speed.

Thankfully, after that uncalled-for, intrusive kiss, Cassandra seemed content to keep her (_Rose's_) hands - and her (_Rose's_) _lips_ \- to herself, so the Doctor didn't have to worry about being distracted by the strange, empty feeling that he knew he would find echoing in her mind. Still, it was difficult to look into those familiar, amber-colored eyes and see someone _else _staring back at him. It made him sick to his stomach and angrier than he had been in a long, _long _time.

He really felt that rage begin to burn when Cassandra finally did relinquish her hold on Rose only to shove his own mind into the back corner of his skull so that she could take his new body out for a joy ride. The Doctor's mind flared against the invisible barrier that she trapped him with, but nothing that he did could break it. He felt as though he were suffocating to death and the fact that he knew that Cassandra was forcing this sort of thoughtless, cruel _violation _on Rose made him want to burn down the entire hospital until there was nothing left but ash and dust.

But the Doctor had spent more time than he cared to count pushing down the deep well of rage inside of him, and he forced himself to do it again as he quickly reconstructed the mental shields (which he _really _hadn't wanted to use again) and took Cassandra's (_Rose's_) hand in his once more. He knew that there would be no reasoning with her until the hospital was deemed safe again, so the Doctor was more determined than ever to keep her - _whoever_ she was - at his side and get the whole place sorted as quickly as possible.

Thankfully, everything went according to plan, and the Doctor even got the chance to talk with the Face of Boe for a few moments before he had to go.

"Oh, I _hate _telepathy ... Just what I need - a head full of _big face_," Cassandra groaned under her breath. The Doctor wondered idly if Cassandra even really knew what she was saying - she _had _been inside of his head, after all. Did she know how much it stung the Doctor to hear her saying those words in _Rose's _voice?

But none of that mattered because a few moments later Cassandra was gone altogether and he had his perfect, whole companion back in his arms again and Rose was smiling up at him like she couldn't have possibly wished for a better sight upon finally waking up.

The Doctor realized with a jolt that the two of them hadn't been quite this close since before he had regenerated, and memories of his past life came flooding back with a sudden, vivid clarity. He realized that he _missed _Rose - had been missing her, ever since he regenerated. He knew that it didn't really make much logical sense - Rose had been there with him the entire time - but his death and subsequent regeneration had put a sudden, unwelcome hold on their relationship and the Doctor longed for that easy familiarity that they had shared before.

"Hello," she greeted him breathlessly.

And the Doctor liked that word _so _much better than the "goodbye" that he had been running from ever since the Game Station, so he took it and did what he always did - he ran with it.

"Hello," he replied warmly. "Welcome back."

His mental shields were crumbling again under the intoxicating proximity and the bright, happy look in Rose's eyes, but the Doctor couldn't quite bring himself to care in that moment. With both of them back in their right minds, he knew that he didn't need to keep any sort of protective barrier between them anymore. In fact, he didn't want _any _sort of barrier to remain between them - not anymore, not ever again.


	4. New Earth (Part Two)

"Feeling any better?" the Doctor asked as he collapsed heavily into the chair opposite the table from Rose. He had wanted to shepherd her into the TARDIS infirmary as soon as Cassandra had been dealt with and dropped off, but Rose had insisted that a warm mug of tea was all that she needed to feel better, so they had ended up in the galley instead.

She hummed noncommittally as she sipped from her steaming mug, giving him a strange, speculative gaze from over the rim.

"What about you?" she asked after she had taken the time to swallow and set the mug down on the table between them once more.

"I'm fine," he replied dismissively, waving his hand through the air as though to brush off her concern as he propped his chin up on his other hand and leaned casually against the table's edge. "Never better. Glad to have you back, though."

"That was ..." Rose's words trailed off and ended on a shiver, and she reached reflexively for her warm tea once more, as though that would help heal her scarred mind. "I can't even describe it, how it felt to have Cassandra in my head like that. It was so ... _wrong_."

"I'm so sorry, Rose," the Doctor sighed, running a hand wearily through his wild hair. "If there were anything that I could have done to prevent that from happening, believe me, I would have done it. What Cassandra did ... it was the _worst _sort of intrusion imaginable. There's a reason why those psychografts are illegal in most of the universe."

"You don't have to fuss so much, Doctor," Rose murmured quietly, flashing him a soft grin. "I know that's not how it's meant to be. I've had you in my head before, remember? And it was never like ... _that_."

"Right ..." the Doctor replied awkwardly. Because the truth was that he _had _been in her head before, but only in the slightest, most least-intrusive form of telepathic communication possible. He had expressed and received in turn emotions and thoughts from Rose, but they had never truly been in one another's heads before - not like Cassandra had been. To do so would be a form of intimacy that the Doctor wasn't sure if he could handle.

"Doctor?" Rose asked quietly, narrowing her eyes on him suspiciously. "What aren't you telling me?"

"Nothing! It's ... nothing, really," he insisted emphatically. "Just glad that Cassandra didn't leave any lasting effects. Having someone in your head for that long can have ... consequences." The Doctor cleared his throat and cast her another furtive look out of the corner of his eye before asking, "How much of it do you remember, by the way?"

And he really hadn't meant anything by the casual question other than to assess Rose's mental health, but the way that she dropped her gaze and her cheeks immediately colored the most enticing shade of pink alerted him to the fact that he was going to get more of an answer than what he had bargained for.

"It's a little fuzzy," she admitted clumsily, her fingers fidgeting restlessly against the ceramic handle of her mug. "Parts of it were like I was seeing or hearing things through a glass wall, but I think I was ... _aware _for most of it."

And when she finally blinked and looked up at him from beneath her dark lashes, the Doctor was immediately reminded of their ill-timed kiss. This had _not _been what he had originally been trying to ask about, but now it was all that he could think of as the haunting memory of it flashed like a movie reel through his mind.

"Er, right ..." he murmured, clearing his throat again and glancing everywhere in the galley except for her. "Sorry, I just ... wanted to make sure that Cassandra didn't suppress anything that she shouldn't have."

"I think _I _should be the one apologizing to _you_," Rose muttered, letting out a breathy, nervous laugh that made his hearts skip a beat.

"No, no, it's fine," the Doctor insisted nervously. "I mean, it's not _fine _that it happened. Well, not like _that_, at least. I'm just saying that you shouldn't apologize. It wasn't your fault. Not that anyone is at _fault_, per se. It's just ... it's fine."

"Right ..." Rose muttered, staring at him as though he had suddenly grown a second head. She blinked a few times before she shrugged and added, "Well, it's not so bad, I guess. Could have been worse. The last time we kissed we had the whole time vortex to worry about, so at least we didn't have to deal with _that _this time."

The Doctor nearly smacked his head against the table as his chin slipped out of his hand in surprise. He spluttered and blinked at her for a few moments after, not quite sure how to respond. He hadn't expected her to just bring up their first kiss so _casually _like that, when they hadn't even really discussed what had happened on the Game Station yet.

Rose, for her part, was staring at him with a look torn between concern and amusement as he struggled for what to say next.

"That wasn't ... That was ..." he stuttered lamely.

"It's alright, Doctor. I was just teasing, don't get all nervous," she assured him with a light smile, but the furtive look that she cast in his direction from out of the corner of her eye spoke volumes. She had been curious as to how he'd react to her broaching the subject, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out what the correct response was meant to be, and he wasn't about to mess this up by opening his mouth and letting the wrong words slip loose.

Did she want him to apologize? Was she looking for an explanation? Did she want him to do it again?

"Don't get nervous?" he repeated dubiously, raising an eyebrow at her in a teasing expression in an attempt to soften the truth that he could feel rising up in his throat. "Rose, you make me more nervous than most things in this galaxy - and I've fought off melchiadors during mating season with my bare hands. Twice!" The Doctor wiggled the fingers of said hand in her direction to illustrate his point and the goofy gesture won him a lighthearted giggle in return.

"You really are just as daft as you look, aren't you, Doctor?" she asked teasingly. Rose ignored his indignant retort and added, "Why would a silly little human make a Time Lord nervous?"

"Rose Tyler!" he exclaimed with a hurt expression that was only partially dramatized. "You are _not _silly, and you are most certainly _not _little. You're clever and brilliant and fantastic and beautiful and you could put an entire legion of Time Lords to shame." And he should certainly know - since she had him wrapped around her little finger.

"Sorry, what was that last one?" Rose asked, flashing him his favorite tongue-in-teeth smile. He thought he saw her cheeks go a bit pink again too, but he couldn't be sure if that was real or just his imagination.

There were many things that he wanted to say to her in that moment, but the Doctor knew that it wasn't the time. Those five critical words were still there, though - buzzing at the back of his mind and begging to be spoken out loud. But even if he couldn't quite force himself to speak _those _words just yet, he knew that there was at least _something _that he could give her - the Doctor had just enough courage to admit at least one, small truth out loud for her.

"You're ... beautiful," he repeated haltingly, forcing the truth out despite the way that it tried to stick in his throat.

Rose's smile immediately dissipated and the Doctor began to worry that perhaps he had said the wrong thing after all as she simply sat there and stared at him for a few moments.

Finally, though, her smile reappeared and this time it was so soft and sweet and genuine that it made him want to do something truly reckless - like blurt out all of the other words that he had bottled up and saved just for her.

But Rose Tyler stepped in and rescued the Doctor from himself - just as she was so very good at doing - and simply shook her head and laughed at him. "Sorry, I was just waiting for you to come up with some sort of ridiculous qualifier," she muttered lightly. "Still getting used to the '_new new Doctor_', I guess."

"Come on, I haven't changed _that _much, have I?" the Doctor asked, hoping that his tone sounded more teasing than pleading as he leveled his gaze on her from across the table.

Rose hummed consideringly as she narrowed her eyes at him for a moment. Finally, her serious expression broke out into another wide smile and she placed her hand, palm-up on the table between them in silent invitation. The Doctor took her hand without a thought and the ease with which they settled into one another's grip really should have worried him, but in reality, it did nothing but fill him with an overwhelming sense of _peace_.

"I guess you're not so different," Rose admitted as she gazed deep into his eyes. "Not in the ways that matter, at least."

And then, for the first time since he had woken up from his healing coma, the Doctor felt Rose on the edge of his consciousness, her mind hesitating just on the outskirts of his thoughts as though she were asking permission to enter. He met her questioning mind with as much welcoming warmth as he could manage, and even though she didn't probe any further and kept a polite amount of distance between their thoughts, her winning smile was really all that the Doctor needed to feel as though everything was finally beginning to be put back to rights again.


	5. Tooth and Claw

The Doctor was pleasantly surprised when they landed in Scotland next and he discovered his new body's propensity for imitating accents (something that his previous body had been rubbish at). What was decidedly _less _pleasantly surprising was the werewolf from space hunting down the Queen of England. And then, of course, he had to go and top himself by getting knighted and exiled within the span of just a few moments.

"Don't think I've forgotten that ten quid, either," Rose reminded him cheekily as soon as he had piloted the TARDIS back into the safety of the vortex. "I refuse to take exile as an excuse. I still won, fair and square."

The Doctor whinged about it and put up a fuss just to make her laugh, but in all honesty, money had never really held any sort of importance to him.

But all playful banter came to an abrupt end when Rose scuffed the edge of her boot against the TARDIS floor grating and screwed up her brow as though she were in deep thought. They were sitting a companionable distance apart from one another on the console room jump seat, but at her sudden change in attitude, the Doctor leaned closer in an attempt to catch her eye as he asked, "Rose? What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, just ..." she sighed as she shook her head and continued to stare hard at the floor, "something the werewolf said ..."

"What did he say?" the Doctor asked, his tone low and serious as he carefully inspected her expression for any hint of a clue.

"He said ... there was something of the wolf about me." Rose shook her head quickly from side to side, but it did nothing to soften the hard line between her brows. "I know that it's silly, but ... it made me remember something. It's hard to explain, though. It was like a dream ..."

The Doctor swallowed hard as he continued to carefully monitor Rose's expression. He knew exactly what the werewolf had been talking about, but was it safe to tel Rose the truth? He had yet to make himself sit down and have this conversation with her. It seemed that now was as good a time as any ...

"What do you remember?" he asked gently.

Rose flashed him a doubtful look out of the corner of her eye before returning her gaze to the floor grating. "It was back on the Game Station, before you ... changed." When the Doctor made no response, she took a breath and turned to face him fully. "What happened?" she asked insistently. "You never properly explained. I want to know, Doctor."

The Doctor's eyes were soft and pleading as he gazed back at her, wishing desperately that they didn't have to have this conversation - but he already knew that if it didn't happen now, Rose would just continue to circle back to it until she eventually wheedled the information out of him.

"Tell me what you remember first," he encouraged her quietly.

Rose sighed heavily and cast her gaze to the time rotor as though the TARDIS might give her the strength that she needed to deal with the Doctor's stubborn evasiveness.

"I looked into the heart of the TARDIS, where there was this singing and a light," she explained slowly. "Everything after that was just ... images and feelings, but they were all ... confused and out of order, somehow? I don't know how to explain it. But then you kissed me and it was just ... gone."

"You looked into the time vortex," the Doctor agreed, forcing himself to meet her confused gaze with a calm, reassuring expression. "You had all of time and space running through your head. You became someone - well, some_thing_ else."

"What do you mean?" Rose asked, a hint of panic entering her tone as she gazed back at him in wide-eyed shock. "How is that possible?"

"You called yourself the Bad Wolf," the Doctor continued, leaning even closer than he had been before but still not daring to reach out and span the small distance between them.

"So ... those words really were a sign," Rose muttered thoughtfully, her expression screwing up once more as she thought back on the two words that had seemed to haunt them from the very first moment that he met her. "They led me back to you after all."

"They led you to your _death_, Rose," he corrected her grimly. "No one is meant to hold the entirety of the time vortex inside their heads - that's why all of those memories have been erased from your mind. The time vortex was killing you."

"But ... but you ..." Rose was looking at him with that wide, horrified expression once more and it broke his hearts to see sudden realization dawning over her features. "I remember the light going into you, that's why ... that's why you kissed me."

Well, it hadn't been the _only _reason why he had kissed her, but the Doctor decided to keep that information to himself for now.

"Does that mean ...?" Her words trailed off on a gasp and he could see sudden tears building behind her eyes as she repeated, "Does that mean ... it was my fault that you died?"

"What? No, of course not!" the Doctor denied instantly, having no other thought than to stop Rose's tears before they could fall. Rose Tyler should never be crying - especially not over _him_.

Good, clever Rose wasn't fooled, though. She groaned and brought her hands up to hide her face from him, which in a way was even worse than the tears.

"Rose, don't," he insisted quietly. "Don't blame yourself, not for this. Besides, look at me! I'm fine!"

"Yeah, but you _weren't_," she reminded him, her tone coming out watery and uneven from between her fingers. "You were hurt and then Earth was almost destroyed at Christmas and it was _all my fault_."

The Doctor hushed her as soothingly as he knew how, his hand hovering nervously around her shoulders before settling lightly against her back. In this new body he was still so awkward when it came to touching her - not quite sure what was allowed and what wasn't.

Rose quickly eased his anxiety, however, when she leaned into him and buried her face in his shoulder. "Can you ever forgive me?" she murmured quietly into his suit.

And the request was simply so ridiculous that the Doctor couldn't stop himself from chuckling out loud. In his eyes, Rose Tyler could do no wrong. What was there to forgive her for?

"Rose, listen to me," he insisted, bending his arm more securely around her shoulders. "Would you go back and change it, if you could? Would you have stayed on Earth and walked away and never gone back to the TARDIS? Would you have been able to just say goodbye and let me die on that Game Stations 200,100 years in the future?"

"No ..." she admitted quietly.

"Well, I wouldn't change any of it, either," he explained, turning his nose into her hair and allowing himself the simple pleasure of just breathing her in. His lips were already just barely grazing over the warm skin of her forehead, so it was a simple thing to press in a little further and leave a few comforting kisses there.

"I would gladly die a thousand times over for you, Rose Tyler," he admitted, squeezing his eyes shut tight against that terrifying revelation. His free will when it came to her had disappeared long ago, he already knew that - but admitting it out loud was a confession that he never thought he would have had the courage to do.

"Don't say that," Rose chided him lightly, but she wrapped her arms around his middle and pulled him closer and the Doctor knew that he had somehow managed to find the right thing to say.

"Promise you won't send me away again," she continued insistently.

But the Doctor knew that that was a promise that he would never reasonably be able to keep, and he wasn't about to lie to Rose Tyler, so he calmly shushed her again and placed more kisses against the crown of her head, pressing a thousand other promises into her skin and her mind as he projected feelings of peace and devotion towards her.

Rose's satisfied sigh was answer enough, and they were content to let the conversation drop there for the time being.


	6. School Reunion

Being called back to Earth like a dog on a chain by Mickey the Idiot had been irritating at first, but Rose's ex (_was_ he her ex? The Doctor still wasn't quite sure what _that_ situation was) surprised the Doctor by being incredibly useful in stopping a dangerous Krillitane invasion.

Even more surprising than that, however, was Sarah Jane Smith - in the flesh, standing before him doing what she always did and investigating. She was older, that was true, but the Doctor always saw his companions as he remembered them, when they were at their best.

He could never regret getting to see his old friend again, but Sarah Jane's untimely appearance did have some unfortunate consequences in that it had caused Rose to begin doubting herself. The Doctor agreed to take Mickey on board with them, thinking that perhaps that might please her and offer her some comfort, but, of course, his brilliant plan ended up having the opposite effect and Rose was more irritated than ever.

It was an unspoken routine for the Doctor and Rose Tyler to be with one another whenever they retreated into the time vortex between adventures for a few hours of rest before the next planet or civilization needed rescuing - it was just another one of the comfortable habits that they had formed during their travels together. They never planned or discussed where they would meet up, they always simply seemed to gravitate towards each other in one way or another. However, for the first time since she had come on board the TARDIS, Rose was avoiding him.

"What's with that face, then?" Mickey asked after the Doctor had gone out of his way to show him the galley and everything that he would need in order to get around on his first night onboard the Doctor's magnificent time ship.

The Doctor had been scowling at the floor between his shoes when Mickey broke him out of his self-flagellation, but now he turned the scowl on him. "What face? This is my normal face," he insisted through clenched teeth.

"Ah, I get it," Mickey replied knowingly. "You messed up. Is she giving you the cold shoulder, then?"

"Don't know what you're talking about," the Doctor grumbled irritably

"Want my advice?"

"No."

"Talk to her," Mickey offered anyway.

And the Doctor decided then that he really had made a mistake in bringing Mickey along. What had he even been thinking? Mickey was nosey and useless and nothing but a nuisance.

As though he had read his thoughts, Mickey narrowed his eyes on the Doctor and asked, "Why _did_ you agree to let me come along, anyway?"

"Dunno," the Doctor lied.

"Fine, be that way," Mickey huffed in annoyance. "Doesn't matter. I already have a pretty good guess anyway. You know, I'm not as dumb as I look."

"No?" the Doctor asked challengingly.

The young man squared his shoulders indignantly as he met the Doctor's glare and accused him simply, "You wanted a distraction, a buffer, a ... an _excuse_."

"Oh, what are you talking about?" the Doctor snapped irritably.

"You're afraid of being alone with her because you're afraid of what might happen," Mickey continued haughtily. "Or maybe, now, what _won't_ happen, since she refuses to even talk to you."

"You don't know what you're talking about," the Doctor insisted stubbornly.

"No? You don't think I can see the way that you two look at each other?" Mickey asked snidely. "They way you've _always_ looked at each other? It's changed, you know - since you went and did that vanishing act on Christmas. Everything has changed and you still don't know how to handle it, but the look in your eyes when you're with her is exactly the same."

"So, what are you trying to say?" the Doctor snapped, fighting very hard to keep his tone level and to not shout at Mickey outright. If Rose heard them having a row, she would just get even more upset ...

"What I'm saying, mate," Mickey said calmly as he stepped forward and clapped his hands on either side of the Doctor's shoulders, "is _talk_ to her."

And the Doctor really, _really_ didn't want to be shamed into taking Mickey's advice, but what else was he supposed to do? Rose was hurt and he needed to know how he could possibly fix this mess that he had put them in.

The TARDIS was as helpful as she always was when it came to Rose, and she led him right to her door, where he took a deep breath, steeled himself, and quietly knocked.

"You can come in, Doctor," Rose called out to him.

He smirked and shook his head as he opened the unlocked door and silently allowed himself entry into her room - a place that he had never ventured before (not in_ this_ body, at least).

"How did you know it was me?" he asked curiously.

"It's always you," Rose sighed, not meeting his eye as she sat on her bed and fiddled nervously with her hands. "Besides, Mickey wouldn't have knocked."

"Rose, I ..." the Doctor began.

"No, Doctor, I'm ... I'm sorry," she interrupted him awkwardly. "I know I'm overreacting, it's just ... it's been a long day and I wasn't expecting you to just ... let Mickey on board like that and I was hoping ... Well, that doesn't matter. What _does_ matter is that I'm fine - really, I am. You don't have to worry."

"No?" he asked quietly, watching her intently as she tried and failed to hold his gaze. "Rose, there is something very, _very_ important that I need for you to understand," he insisted, stepping further into her room but keeping his hands firmly stuffed into his pockets so that he wouldn't be tempted to do anything reckless (like rush forward and throw his arms around her). "I will _always_ worry about you," he informed her resolutely.

That, finally, won him a small smile and she shook her head as she continued to stare at her hands in her lap. "How many, Doctor?" she asked quietly.

"What?"

"How many of us have there been? How many people have you traveled with over the years?" she elaborated. "Can you even count them? Do you even remember?"

"Yes," he replied, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Yes, I remember."

Rose watched him for a moment before standing to her feet and stepping forward to throw her arms around his shoulders in a tight, desperate hug. The Doctor sighed wearily and wished that the sensation didn't feel so much like coming home.

_Please don't leave me,_ Rose begged him silently, pressing her cheek hard against the side of his face as she pushed her thoughts into his head. _Please, just promise me that._

The Doctor found that he couldn't formulate a response to that, so instead he finally forced his hands out of his pockets and wrapped his arms tightly around her middle, bringing her even closer until there wasn't even a breath of space left between them.

He buried his nose in her hair and was attempting to organize his thoughts so that he could show her even the tiniest glimpse of all that he felt concerning Rose Tyler when something between their vague mental connection clicked and fell into place. This was the third time, now, that he had experienced this strange sensation - and finally, he began to recognize it for what it truly was.

The Doctor immediately flinched away from her as though he had been burned, staring down at her hurt expression with wide, frantic eyes.

"Doctor?" Rose asked curiously. "What is it?"

But how could he possibly tell her? He had never experienced this before - not with a _human_, anyway, and _certainly_ not with someone who he _cared_ about. The Doctor realized that the strange, reoccurring feeling that he had been experiencing with Rose ever since his regeneration was none other than the beginning of a bond - the first, fragile ground works for something that was infinitely precious and infinitely _dangerous._

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Rose tried again. She took a hesitant step closer in an attempt to erase the space that he had put between them, but the Doctor's mind was already overloaded with his own thoughts, and he knew that he couldn't risk adding hers into the mix.

"It's fine," he lied breathlessly, twitching nervously away from her. "Everything's fine, I just ... forgot something. I'll just ... go and check on that, then. Be right back. Don't worry, everything's fine!"

The Doctor flashed her his most convincing smile before he turned and ran from her room as fast as his legs could carry him. Her answering expression, though, haunted him for the rest of the night. She was so filled with worry (_concern_ for _him_) and hurt (her own emotions coming last, always putting herself _last_). She didn't understand, though she desperately wanted to, but the Doctor had no way of explaining it - not yet, anyway.

He had so many, many words and it still always came down to those _five_ \- the five words he couldn't force himself to say, not out loud, not even to himself. All of his ridiculous Time Lord senses were alerting him that the time for telling her was fast approaching - he just wondered if he would be able to make it until then.


	7. The Girl in the Fireplace (Part One)

The Doctor was pleasantly surprised yet again when they landed in the fifty-first century and immediately got to work with uncovering the mystery of the eighteenth century French fireplaces. He, Rose, and Mickey made a surprisingly good team, and the Doctor found his attitude towards Mickey cautiously thawing (he _had_ been right about talking to Rose, after all - maybe he wasn't _so_ useless).

The added passenger also left the Doctor feeling more comfortable about leaving Rose behind as he shifted back and forth between the centuries in an attempt to stop the strange clockwork robots. Normally, he would have been a little bit more hesitant to leave her side with time going all wibbly around them, but knowing that she wouldn't be on her own gave him the confidence that he needed to help save a frightened young girl. But, of course, that frightened young girl regrettably grew up, and the temporal inconsistencies left the Doctor's head spinning.

"I came the quick route," he explained nervously, not at all liking the way that Reinette - now a young woman - so purposefully invaded his personal space. Did all humans have to be like this? Or was it just the young, attractive women who couldn't seem to keep their hands off of him?

The Doctor's hearts nearly stopped as she reached out and laid her palm against his cheek, instantly flooding his mind with her awe and wonder. Every warning light that had ever been instilled in the Doctor's head was screaming a red alert as Reinette examined every detail of his face and quietly murmured, "You seem to be flesh and blood at any rate, but this is absurd. Reason tells me that you cannot be real."

"Oh ... you never want to listen to reason," he quipped as lightly as possible, finally beginning to breathe normally again after she removed her hand from his face.

But the hand really should have been the least of his worries, because in no time at all, Reinette was pushing him up against the fireplace and doing her very best to snog the life out of him. A million thoughts immediately raced through the Doctor's mind, but they were all out of order and coated in the thick layer of desire that Reinette was currently projecting through his skin.

First, he mused over how long it had been since he had done this - kissed a normal, human woman with no impending, life-threatening, mind-altering threat going on around them. Second, he realized with a shock that he didn't particularly _hate_ the sensation - in fact, it was _nice_. And he really didn't know how to cope with that revelation, so he moved quickly onto the third thought, and realized that it probably _shouldn't_ feel this nice - because he didn't even know Reinette, and he really shouldn't just be going around snogging strangers when the love of his lives was waiting just behind him on a fifty-first century spaceship.

But by the time that the Doctor got to the fourth thought - that he should _really_ work on raising his mental shields and putting some distance between the two of them - his arms were already wrapping reflexively around the strange woman's waist and he was kissing her back. Thankfully (or, at least he was _fairly sure_ that he was thankful), Reinette ended the moment when she rushed off to tend to whatever it was that human women in the eighteenth century had to attend to, and left him dazed and speechless in her wake.

"Oh, here's trouble," Rose greeted him cheekily once he had finally found her and Mickey again. "What you been up to?"

"Oh, this and that ..." the Doctor replied evasively, quite pointedly _not_ telling her about Madame de Pompadour.

The next time that he pushed through one of the time portals to save Reinette's life, the Doctor quickly realized that he was going to have to do the truly unthinkable, and he sent Rose and Mickey back to the fifty-first century to chase after the killer clockwork robots as soon as he could so that he could face the real danger (that is, the mind of a young, human woman) alone.

"Oh dear, Reinette," he sighed as his thoughts aligned with hers and he began sifting through her memories. "You've had some cowboys in here."

The Doctor had connected his mind with many other humans throughout his lifetimes - usually to find or conceal valuable information in a timely way that couldn't be done through simple verbal communication. It was always an uncomfortable experience for him - or, at least, it _had_ been until he had met Rose. Human minds simply weren't wired the way that Time Lords were. Even Rose, when he had first met her, had been awkward and unskilled in lining up her thoughts with his, even when she was putting all of her attention and focus into it.

That had changed ever since the Bad Wolf, though - and the Doctor realized with a start that he had gotten used to the easy familiarity that he had with Rose. He felt a wave of guilt and shame crash over him as he awkwardly stumbled through Reinette's thoughts - realizing that it took him going through another woman's mind to finally make him understand just how valuable his relationship with Rose really was.

"Oh, Doctor," Reinette sighed quietly, immediately breaking him from his thoughts. "So lonely ... So very, very alone."

"What do you mean 'alone'? You've never been alone in your life," the Doctor murmured in confusion. His eyes snapped open and he began to quickly withdrawal his thoughts from hers as he stared down at her in shock. "When did you start calling me 'Doctor'?"

"Such a lonely little boy," Reinette went on, her own eyes still screwed shut in concentration. "Lonely then, and lonelier now." Finally, her eyes opened again and the Doctor felt a wave of panic run through him at all that he saw there. "How can you bear it?"

The Doctor jolted away from her as though she had burned him and quickly assembled every last mental shield that he could think of in an attempt to cover his mind and feel safe and protected inside of his own head again. He realized suddenly that he had grown too lax with Rose - he had let down all of his defenses, and now he was paying the consequences for his lack of foresight with a complete stranger.

_Oh, what would the Time Lords think of you now?_ he mused silently to himself. _To be overcome by one, simple human so easily. They would have labeled you a disgrace. They would have laughed you off of Gallifrey._

After that, the Doctor grudgingly let Reinette lead him off to the ball with the king of France because he knew that he needed a distraction, but he absolutely refused to dance with her (no matter how hard she attempted to flirt and beguile him into it). He thought that perhaps she realized that she had overstepped her bounds when she kept flashing him concerned looks throughout the night, but he refused to broach the subject - not with _her_, not now.

He really wanted nothing more than to run back to the safety of his TARDIS and leave Mickey and Reinette and every century in history behind him so that he could narrow his entire world to just him and Rose. He needed reassurance and warmth and he knew that there was only one woman in the whole universe who could give that to him. And yet, he was still so _afraid_ \- so burned by the most recent unwelcome intrusion into his mind that the Doctor knew that he would need some time to regain his composure before he attempted to face Rose again.

Unfortunately for him, _time_ had never exactly been on his side, and when the clockwork robots threatened to take Madame de Pompadour's head, the Doctor did what he always did and sacrificed himself for the greater good. He didn't even get to say goodbye to Rose before he did it, either - and the crushing weight of his own impetuous recklessness threatened to overwhelm him completely as he grudgingly set his feet on the slow path and resigned himself to the life of misery and abandonment that he truly deserved.


	8. The Girl in the Fireplace (Part Two)

A/N: Sorry in advance for all of the angst in this chapter. I promise things will start clearing up soon!

* * *

The Doctor did eventually make it back to Rose - against all odds and reason, just as he always did. However, he still had to send her away as soon as they had completed their warm reunion and returned to the TARDIS without Madame de Pompadour. He didn't want to have to send Rose off with Mickey (in fact, he never wanted to let her out of his sight or reach ever again), but he Doctor knew that he needed to read Reinette's letter in private.

And he was glad that he did, because the woman's relentless hope in him shattered his hearts and made him want to simultaneously throw the letter into the heart of a black hole where it would never be able to see the light of day again, and also carve the words into his soul so that he would never be able to forget what a horrible, disgusting disappointment he was to everyone who was ever foolish enough to rely on him.

He wanted nothing more than to collapse onto his bed (something that he hadn't done in _far_ too long) and spend a few hours sulking in his own self-hatred, but his meddling time ship had better ideas, and he found himself instead stumbling into the library, where Rose was seated on the couch as though she had been waiting for him.

She still startled when he entered, though - her eyes going wide as she took in his broken, desperate expression. "Doctor ...?" she asked slowly.

He didn't make any sort of reply - he didn't have any words that weren't dripping in six layers of regret and self-loathing and he wasn't about to add all of that to the weight that he had already put on Rose's shoulders.

Instead, he simply came around the edge of the couch that she was occupying and sat down heavily next to her. The Doctor stared hard at his shoes, refusing to meet Rose's eyes, but he noticed immediately the way that she shifted slightly away from him and it made him want to scream in frustration, hurt, and rage.

"Do ... do you want me to get you something?" Rose asked hesitantly, breaking the awkward silence between them. "Do you want a cuppa? Or maybe something to eat?" She was already getting up before he responded, ready to dodge outside of his reach once more, but the Doctor instantly knew that he couldn't let her leave. He needed her now more than ever - even the TARDIS knew it.

He grasped her by the wrist without thinking and sighed heavily as he hung his head in a dejected sign of defeat. He still didn't have any words for her - none that he could speak out loud, anyway - so he spoke directly into her mind instead.

_You, Rose,_ he stated simply. _I just need you. Please stay._

_That's a change._ Her response came quickly, without thought, and the bitterness of it nearly broke his hearts all over again. He glanced up to see Rose's eyes grow with panic as she realized that she had accidentally let the thought slip through to him.

The Doctor screwed his eyebrows up at her in confusion as she quickly shuttered the rest of her mind away from him and left him feeling somehow even more lost and abandoned than he already was. "Sorry, I ... I didn't mean it," she stuttered awkwardly. "It just slipped out. Please, Doctor, just ignore that."

"You don't ... you don't actually _believe_ that, do you?" the Doctor asked quietly, running his thumb over the delicate bones in her wrist. "Rose ..."

"No, really, it's fine, Doctor," she insisted dismissively. "It's just ... it's been a long day. A lot has happened, and I don't want to get in your way."

_Rose, please,_ he begged silently once more, bringing her hand close and pressing her knuckles to the skin of his forehead. He squeezed his eyes shut tight and let out a shaky, uneven breath as he quietly willed her to let him back in - to fix this mistake, to feel whole again. _Please stay._

Rose hesitated, and he didn't have to know her thoughts to feel the tension running through every single muscle of her body as she stared down at him in consideration.

"Promise you won't run away this time," she finally said, her voice a quiet, desperate command.

When the Doctor didn't immediately respond, she sighed and gently slid her hand out of his grasp. "Let me make you some tea," she muttered resignedly. "I'll be right back."

And the Doctor quietly marveled over how _even now_ when he stubbornly refused to give her any kind of promise or reassurance after the absolute hell that he had just put her through, she was _still_ putting himself before her - still trying to take care of him, still loving him as though it was a helpless, thoughtless action. The very thought nearly stopped his hearts and he knew that he couldn't let it end like this - not again.

"Rose, wait," the Doctor insisted, standing to his feet and stepping in front of her so that he stood between her and the library door. "Listen, I ... I'm sorry. For everything, all of it. I've made a right mess of things and I know I don't deserve it - don't deserve _you_ \- but please, let me explain ..."

"What is it, Doctor?" Rose sighed wearily, not meeting his eyes as she glanced everywhere except at him.

"I'm ... a coward, Rose," he explained awkwardly. "The biggest coward who ever lived. I've been running all my life from everything, everyone - it's all I've ever known. I even ran from you, because ..."

The Doctor paused and raised his hands, but stepped himself just before he allowed his fingers to touch her because he already knew how badly he had messed up and he wasn't about to go assuming that she wanted anything to do with him unless she specifically stated otherwise. But when Rose finally met his gaze and didn't flinch away, he took that as permission enough and gently allowed his fingers to ghost over her temples.

His eyes shut on instinct and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief as he sank into her comforting presence - it was so, so different from what had happened not long ago with Reinette and the Doctor silently allowed himself a moment to simply bask in her warmth and allow himself to regain his courage.

_Can you feel it?_ he asked her silently as their thoughts slowly aligned and became one.

Rose offered him a silent, wordless assent as she marveled at the way that their connection quickly fell into place and the tiny bond between them flared.

_This is why I ran away,_ the Doctor explained. _This isn't just telepathy, Rose. This is the beginning of a bond - a permanent thing that links two people's minds forever. I didn't even think that it was possible - in fact, it_ shouldn't _be possible - for a human to do this. I was scared. I didn't want to risk having it go any further. At least ..._ The Doctor's thoughts suddenly scattered and trailed off in a million different directions, silently hinting at all of the things that even now he couldn't quite force himself to say.

But Rose seemed to understand anyway, just as she always did, and wasn't offended by his refusal to create a mental bond with her. She seemed to instinctually recognize that his "at least ..." was meant to end in "not until you agree".

She sighed softly, her breath ghosting against the Doctor's lips and igniting the flame of desire that he had held for her for far longer than he cared to admit. This close in each other's minds, there was no way of hiding it, and her breath hitched on a gasp as the Doctor leaned forward and pressed his forehead to hers.

_I can't promise you much,_ he admitted silently as he trailed his thumbs over the soft skin of her cheeks, _but now you know the truth_

_Thank you, Doctor,_ Rose replied, her answering flare of love and desire nearly overwhelming him. _The truth is enough._

Neither of them bothered to acknowledge the unspoken "for now" that they both knew hung on the end of that thought. After all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours, they were content to simply live in the current moment, taking comfort in one another, and saving the rest for another day.


	9. Rise of the Cybermen & The Age of Steel

A climax, of sorts. Let's all enjoy it while we can, we know what's coming ... D:

* * *

One TARDIS crash, a parallel world, a cyberman invasion, and one less passenger later, the Doctor finally had the opportunity to collapse onto his bed and get the rest that he had been putting aside for far too long.

He was finally about to nod off into unconsciousness when a soft, hesitant knock sounded against his door and immediately startled him wide awake. The Doctor so seldom used this room, he was shocked that Rose had even been able to find it (though, of course, that was assuming that the TARDIS wasn't meddling again).

It was also odd that he was being disturbed because at that moment, his ship was parked in the middle of Jackie's flat, where Rose had asked to spend the night after their eventful trip in the parallel world. She had planned on staying in her childhood bed (at Jackie's insistence) for the night, so the Doctor had assumed that he wouldn't be hearing from her again until the morning. The fact that she was searching for him now immediately put him on edge, as his mind instantly jumped to the worst possible conclusions.

"Rose ...?" he called back cautiously.

"Doctor?" she responded timidly. "Can I come in?"

"Yes, o-of course," he stuttered, immediately sitting up on the edge of his bed and preparing to jump into action should Rose require him for anything.

However, as soon as she cracked his bedroom door open, her eyes widened in shock and she instantly froze on the threshold.

"Oh!" she gasped in surprise. "This is ... your room. Were you sleeping? I'm so sorry, I didn't know. I just asked the TARDIS to show me where you were, and she led me here, I didn't mean to ..."

"It's alright, Rose," he assured her softly, not taking his intent gaze away from her for even a second. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, I just ... Well, it's silly," she mumbled, shifting awkwardly and avoiding his gaze. "I didn't know that you were trying to sleep. I don't want to bother you ..."

"It's no bother, Rose," he insisted, motioning for her to come in. "What's wrong?"

Rose sighed heavily and the weary sag of her shoulders immediately put the Doctor on high alert. "I just ... didn't want to be alone," she admitted quietly into the dim light of his bedroom.

The Doctor gulped over the sudden lump in his throat, but he continued to motion her forward anyway. "Come on, then," he encouraged her, waiting until she hesitantly crept forward and joined him on the edge of his bed so that he could throw his arm around her shoulders in a reassuring hug.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured quietly, his words suddenly coming easier when his mind was too weary to try and police them. "It seems that no matter what I do lately, I keep putting you in greater and greater danger."

"It's not your fault," Rose sighed, resting her head on his shoulder. "And don't think that I came here to hear the same old story of how you want to leave me behind because that will somehow make me safer."

The Doctor laughed softly as he burrowed his nose in her hair and placed his lips gently against her temple. "You're not going to get rid of me that easily," he murmured against her skin. _I couldn't leave you now if I tried,_ he added silently.

Rose sighed again and with the next breath that she took, her mind opened fully to him and she unabashedly revealed the hurt that she had been hiding within her ever since they had left Mickey behind. But there was even more than that, and the Doctor wondered briefly if she had meant to show him so much, but he didn't question her as she slowly and silently laid her thoughts bare before him.

She showed him her past - how she never thought she was ever good enough, her present - how she had so many lingering questions when it came to him and their life together, and her future - all that she wished for and desired.

The Doctor's free hand came up to her other temple before he could stop himself, not caring about anything other than reassuring the one woman in this entire universe who he loved and cherished above all else. He still didn't say the "l" word (out loud or otherwise), but he telepathically answered each and every single one of Rose's lingering doubts with a solid and resounding _yes_, and _only you_, and _forever_.

Rose turned her head towards him, her amber-colored eyes seeming to glow gold in the dim light that surrounded them. Her wordless, heartfelt response (and yes, there was definitely a healthy dose of desire in the mix that he was picking up on, which both terrified and intrigued him) gave the Doctor the courage that he needed to lean forward and capture her lips with his own.

Her immediate and eager attempt to reciprocate only spurred him on further as she parted her lips for him and allowed him to taste and explore all of the things that he had withheld himself from for so long.

The Doctor kissed Rose with a reverence, just as he had back on the Game Station - though this time there was a certain amount of desperate neediness in the action as well, and having her thoughts of pleasure echoed directly back into his own skull only served to urge him on further.

He only paused to suck in a gasp of air as the mental connection between them flared once more and the Doctor was quickly reminded of the dangerous ground that they were treading on.

_Don't stop,_ Rose begged silently, bringing her hands up to his neck so that he couldn't run from her even if he wanted to (which, in this moment, he most definitely did _not_).

_This is permanent, Rose,_ he reminded her, his lips going gentle against hers once more in an attempt to gain some sort of control over himself. _Do you understand what that means?_

"How many times do I have to promise you 'forever' before you finally get it, you bloody idiot?" Rose murmured against his mouth, her breath ghosting over his face and making him shiver.

And the Doctor decided very quickly in that moment that he was oh so very tired of running, and that perhaps it was time to finally give way to the inevitable. Their two timelines flared gold and twisted together into seamless unity behind his eyes, urging the Doctor forward as he brought both of his hands to Rose's temples and guided her telepathically, _Like this._

Rose obediently followed his lead, raising her hands to mirror his against his own temples. The feel of her fingertips against the sensitive skin there was enough to make him groan with suppressed longing as he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers and force himself to take a few deep, calming breaths.

The Doctor silently steeled himself before allowing his mind to reach for hers. Rose responded as easily as though she had been practicing telepathy her entire life, and in no time at all, the mental link was established. It glowed like a beacon between their minds and they gasped in unison as they both fully invaded one another's heads for the very first time. It was so easily and simply done that the Doctor's mind spun and his fingers tightened around the sides of Rose's temples as he fought desperately to ground himself.

Rose's thoughts were a tangled, disorganized mess as she lost herself in the Doctor and he gently soothed her racing mind as they both slowly settled into one another.

With Rose in his head like this, the Doctor found that there was no longer any need to cling so tightly to those five precious words that he had been fighting so desperately to keep from her for far too long. Instead, he filled his mind with them, putting them on display to make sure - beyond a shadow of a doubt - that in that moment, she knew the truth.

_Rose Tyler, I love you._

Her sardonic amusement settled over his thoughts as she sighed against him and replied, _It's about time. I love you, too, you idiot._


	10. The Idiot's Lantern

Things became so ridiculously _simple_ after that that the Doctor really began to wonder why he had spent the last year-and-a-half fighting so hard to run away from the inevitable. Having another being in his head after so long of having nothing but the lonely melody of the TARDIS to accompany his thoughts was strange but exhilarating all the same.

His bond with Rose was still not what it would have been if she were a Gallifreyan, but it was far stronger than it had any right to be, considering the fact that they were two different species. The Doctor quietly suspected the Bad Wolf to be the culprit behind Rose's anomalous telepathic abilities, but he stubbornly refused to dig deeper into _that_ particular hypothesis.

It certainly helped that Rose took to it all surprisingly well, too - she followed his lead in many ways, but she also wasn't afraid to experiment and try her own things. Her favorite trick that she liked to use so far was to wait until he was least expecting it and then randomly blast him with little waves of affection that would make his thoughts turn fuzzy and his knees go weak. However, his personal favorite use of the bond was when she would almost unconsciously reach out and attempt to smooth out his thoughts whenever they got too unfocused or tangled up over some unresolved issue or another. The Doctor had spent so long trying to puzzle things out on his own that having a second consciousness there to help him - even when she didn't realize that she was going it - was a type of comfort that he hadn't even known that he had wanted or needed.

Everything that the Doctor had ever done since he had brought Rose Tyler onboard the TARDIS had been centered specifically around her, but the Doctor found himself planning their next destination with even more specificity than usual. He chose 1950s New York just so that the two of them would have a chance to dress up (something that this new incarnation absolutely adored doing, even if he wouldn't admit it), and he even combed through the old, seldom-used TARDIS garage to find a scooter just so that he would be able to feel her sitting pressed up close to him as they zoomed through the busy city streets.

The TARDIS, however, ended up getting ideas of her own and landed them in a different continent and a few years late - but the rest of the Doctor's plan went off generally without a hitch. He flashed Rose a pleased, comfortable sensation as she slid effortlessly onto the scooter behind him and she squeezed him tightly around the middle as she echoed the thought back almost perfectly.

The simple reassurance of having here _there_ \- just right on the edge of his consciousness at all times - was so satisfying that it hurt even more when that new sensation was suddenly ripped away from him. The Doctor knew even before the detective inspector removed the blanket that they had covered her in who the face-eating monster had claimed next, but having to see Rose's face - her perfect, beautiful features, her expressive, tawny-colored eyes, her gorgeous, dazzling smile - erased completely filled him with a dangerous, feral sort of resolve that he hadn't felt since the Time War.

The Doctor didn't pause for even a single moment in his fight against The Wire until he finally rounded the corner to see her standing in the crowd of rescued people at the edge of the yard where they had been kept. She had her back to him as the Doctor reached out and hesitantly searched his silent bond for the mind that he had been missing all day.

Rose turned the instant that she felt his awareness on the edge of her consciousness and immediately locked eyes with him. They didn't have to speak a word as the bond between them blossomed back to life and they both fueled it with their combined sense of overwhelming relief and satisfaction.

_Thought I'd lost you,_ he told her as he wrapped her up in a hug and swung her in a circle so that he could feel her entire length and weight leaning against him like a grounding anchor.

_Never gonna happen,_ she assured him as she chuckled breathlessly into his ear and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. And the fierce tenacity behind that thought made him almost - _almost_ \- believe her. After all, if anyone in the universe had the strength to defy even death itself, then it was certainly Rose Tyler.

By unspoken agreement the two of them met in the library that night after they had returned the TARDIS to the vortex for a rest. The Doctor had spent almost an entire day without Rose's presence in his mind, and even though the connection was still so new to both of them, he had felt completely and utterly lost without it. He was desperate to be alone with her and to reassure himself that she was _alive_ and _well_ and still totally, undeniably _his_.

The Doctor wasted no time in wrapping her up in his arms and settling them both on the comfortable library couch where he could immerse himself completely in the proximity of her presence. He had one arm wrapped tight around her middle and the other buried in her hair while her head rested against his shoulder. Rose had changed out of her period skirt and into more comfortable sleepwear and was currently laying half on top of him and drawing her fingers over his chest in swirling, nonsense patterns.

"Are you alright, Doctor?" she asked, her voice breaking the tense silence that had fallen over them.

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully as he pressed a series of light kisses to the crown of her head. "More worried about you," he mumbled into her hair as he carefully felt out their renewed bond for the twelfth time in as many minutes.

"I'm fine," Rose assured him, using both her words and her thoughts to prove her sentiment. "I don't really remember much of it, really. One minute I was at Magpie's, then there was a light, and then I came to back in that yard."

The Doctor shifted his hand from her hair to her neck and urged her silently with his fingertips to look up and meet his eye. When she easily complied, he took a moment to simply _look_ at her - his precious, perfect human girl. His hearts swelled with all of his love for her, the sensation overflowing and spilling into her mind in a way that he couldn't have stopped even if he had wanted to.

He pressed his lips solidly to hers, as though he could somehow sear his love and devotion into her warm, human skin. _Don't ever leave me, Rose,_ he begged her silently. _Never again. It was unbearable, having you ripped away like that. I don't know if I could survive without you._

He flashed her the barest glimpse of the burning, aching loss that he had felt when their connection had been momentarily severed - just the slightest look into the living hell that he had been forced to endure for the day - but it was enough to make Rose grasp at him with renewed strength, more eager than ever to somehow prove to him that she wasn't going anywhere - not now, or ever again.

_I'm right here, Doctor,_ she assured him resolutely. _Forever._

And the Doctor didn't care that _forever_ was an impossible promise for her to keep - it was one that he could and _would_ keep for her, through this life or any other.


	11. The Impossible Planet & The Satan Pit(1)

"Where've we landed, then?" Rose asked as she wandered into the console room and leaned casually against the Doctor's arm.

He didn't need to have a mental bond with her to sense that something was wrong. There were bags under her eyes and she shuffled her feet slightly against the floor grating as she walked - not skipping about with her usual excitement at the promise of a new adventure right outside the TARDIS doors.

"No idea," the Doctor answered, reaching out to run his hand down Rose's arm in silent question. Through the bond he could feel her haggard exhaustion as his own, but he couldn't quite pinpoint the source of her discomfort. The TARDIS made a groaning noise and Rose's thoughts wearily echoed the sentiment.

"I'm fine," she assured him with a weak smile as she met his questioning gaze. "Just ... tired, I think. Come on, let's see where she's landed us. It seemed a bit rough this time, is the TARDIS alright?"

The Doctor silently allowed Rose to dodge his curious concern, but he made sure to keep a tight mental hold on their bond all the same, wanting to make sure that if anything changed for the worse, he would know immediately. "Everything seems to be functioning normally," he muttered as he flashed the controls a curious glance and then moved to follow Rose out of the TARDIS doors. "I don't know what's wrong, though. She's sort of ... _queasy_. Indigestion, like she didn't want to land ..."

"Well," Rose replied with some measure of concern, "if you think there's going to be trouble, we could always get back inside and go somewhere else ..."

They both cracked at the exact same moment, their shared amusement ringing off of the walls in the cramped cupboard that they had landed in as they laughed out loud. However, it didn't take long for the Doctor to regret his casual dismissal of Rose's teasing words. It would have been so easy to heed the warning of the TARDIS in the back of his mind and the weary set of Rose's shoulders and insist that they fly away and land somewhere else - but once again, he had walked Rose by the hand and led her straight into danger.

Rose comforted him as best she could, but it was eighteenth century France all over again and the Doctor was forced to face off once more against his worst enemy yet (worse, even, than the _daleks_) - the dreaded _slow path_.

Rose teasingly joked about jobs and houses and mortgages, but the Doctor could see the image that she was paining inside of her mind and he knew that there was nothing insincere about the life that she was dreaming up for them. In her head, they lived a simple, happy life just like any other human couple back on Earth, filled with food and work and anniversaries year after year on a continuous, endless cycle.

The image didn't scare the Doctor as much as he thought it would - or, at least, it didn't scare him in the way that he had expected. It was still the slow path and so incredibly _simple_ and _linear_, but the smiling, happy Doctor and Rose in Rose's fantasies made him think that maybe a normal life didn't necessarily have to be _boring_ as well - not with her in it.

What scared him the most, though, was the way that Rose lingered longingly on the thought, combing carefully through the idea of a stationary, human life. The Doctor suddenly found that he was doubting himself for the first time since they had created their mental bond together. He knew in his bones that Rose loved traveling with him and wouldn't change their adventures for anything else in all of existence, but he suddenly began to wonder if perhaps they wanted two very different things.

Did she really dream about settling down and creating a life with him? Did she fantasize about a time at the end of their travels where they could simply live out the rest of their lives in domestic bliss? Was the Doctor even capable of giving those things to her if that was what she _did_ want?

"I promised Jackie I'd always take you back home ..." he muttered wearily, not able to meet her eyes as her idle daydreams cleared from their bond and she returned to simply offering him small waves of comforting reassurances.

"Everyone leaves home in the end," Rose sighed offhandedly, staring down the black hole that was hanging above their heads as though she intended to personally challenge it.

"Not to end up stuck here."

"Yeah, but stuck with you, that's not so bad," Rose insisted quietly.

"Yeah?" the Doctor asked, tentatively reaching out over their bond to meet her reassuring touch and easing into the deep sense of satisfaction that he got from sinking into his bondmate's presence.

"Yes," Rose stated authoritatively, turning to smile knowingly at him as she let her mind fuse comfortably with his.

Her complete, assured confidence filled the space between them and overflowed into his mind, and the Doctor really had no choice but to believe her.

Still, he was the Doctor and she was Rose Tyler and they both had roles to play. As long as there were lives to save and people to rescue, they each had to do their part. So the Doctor volunteered to descend into the dark unknown without a second thought, and Rose let him go without any complaint or attempt to stop him.

_Come back to me alive,_ she commanded through the bond long after they had said their goodbyes and the capsule was rattling along on its way down to Point Zero at the heart of the planet. She had a comm line linked directly to his environment suit helmet, but this demand she transmitted silently straight into his thoughts - a message just for him.

The Doctor closed his eyes and focused on the bright light of her consciousness as it slowly dimmed and faded from his mind. With every mile that was put between them, he could feel his grasp on Rose's mind unraveling as the bond thinned and slipped through his fingers. He tried very hard to keep his panic hidden from her as his breath became shallow and his thoughts began to race. They hadn't even been bonded for very long, but he was already losing his grip on her mind for the second time since he had come to fully embrace her presence in his head, and he was beginning to wonder if it would ever get any easier to let her go, or if it was always going to be this unbearably _painful_.

_Stay safe,_ he finally replied, giving his own last, desperate command. _I'm coming back for you._


	12. The Impossible Planet & The Satan Pit(2)

The Doctor wasn't sure if the fact that he could still manage to be surprised after nine-hundred years of space and time travel was something to marvel at or fear. However, he certainly didn't marvel at _or_ fear the beast that he discovered trapped in the pit at the center of Krop Tor. No, the only thing that he felt for _that_ particular entity was a deep, primal sense of anger and disgust.

That didn't stop the beast from trying, though - it had a particular word for each of them, each message carefully worded to instill a sense of dread. The Doctor didn't miss the fact that the creature didn't have any sort of threat made specifically for him - he suspected that that was because the beast's words for Rose were already the Doctor's own worst nightmare.

"And the lost girl, so very far away from home. The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon."

The Doctor knew that it was a lie - it _had_ to be - but that didn't stop him from throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to confront this beast face-to-face and personally put an end to the monster's vague and sinister threats.

All the while, he felt the emptiness in his head like a gaping wound - the space that he didn't even realize that he had reserved for Rose sitting completely silent and unoccupied in the back of his skull. He didn't even have a way of knowing if she was okay or not - the distance was simply too great. For all he knew, the beast's threats could have been real and his bond with Rose could have been severed forever without him even knowing.

But the Doctor refused to give up on hope - to give up on _her_ \- even when the beast's true agenda was revealed and the Doctor realized just how disastrous their situation really was. Destroy the beast, or destroy them all? Let the monster run free, or send them all hurtling into a black hole? The Doctor couldn't help but wonder how many more times he would be forced to make the decision between Rose and the greater good.

"_Except_," the Doctor insisted as he rattled through his one-sided monologue, "that implies in this big, grand scheme of gods and devils that she's just a victim. But I've seen a lot of this universe. I've seen fake gods and bad gods and demigods and would-be gods, and out of all that - out of that whole _pantheon_ \- if I believe in one thing, just one ... I believe in _her_."

And his simple, honest belief in Rose did just what it always did - it somehow managed to defeat the many odds stacked against them and got them all home safe and sound. Well, it got them away from that insane, impossible planet and the crazed beast, at least.

After the Doctor had finally been reunited with the TARDIS and made his slim escape from Krop Tor, he only had to wait three minutes and eighteen seconds until he heard her voice again, shouting in elation over the comm link that he had opened with Zach's rocket ship. "I'm here! It's me!" she exclaimed eagerly.

Their faded bond came blooming back to life twenty-nine seconds after that, and the Doctor telepathically pulled her as deep into his mind as he could, simultaneously celebrating her return and begging her not to ever leave again.

_Knew you'd be back,_ she hummed happily against his thoughts. _Never doubted you for a second._

_Me, neither_ he agreed with a sigh. _I knew you could do it._

It was another five minutes and fifty-three seconds before the Doctor finally got to lay eyes on her again - his perfect, beautiful Rose. She burst through the TARDIS doors, smiling grandly up at him as though she couldn't quite believe that he had come back for her (even though they both knew that he always, _always_ would).

They started running at the exact same moment, meeting halfway as they did in all things. He lifted her into the air with his hands wrapped tight around her ribcage, trying to draw her in as close as he possibly could. Her bubbling excitement to see him combined with her pleased hum of satisfaction rang through his head and instantly laid all of his lingering anxieties to rest.

When the Doctor finally parted from her, it was only long enough so that he could step out of the bulky orange environment suit that he had been wearing ever since his descent to Point Zero. It only took thirteen seconds before he pulled her back to him, but he could feel each moment of time as it ticked by, reminding him of the precious nanoseconds that he was wasting. His lips found hers easily after that, but as a wave of sudden desperation crashed over Rose, the kiss quickly turned hard and uncoordinated, her teeth pulling at his lips as though she wanted to devour him whole.

The Doctor clumsily attempted to reach into her mind and find the heart of the matter that had suddenly sparked such a wild flame of nervous fear in her thoughts, but before he could get any sort of grasp on the situation, she was stepping away from him again.

Rose flashed him a small, apologetic smile (and the gesture cut straight to his hearts - why did she think she would _ever_ have to apologize for something like _that_?) as she reached for the brown, pinstriped jacket that had been slung over the railing next to them and casually helped him into it. He silently continued to question her, but she offered no sort of verbal or telepathic response as they reestablished their comm link with Zach and his team.

"What do you think it was, really?" Rose asked him hesitantly a moment later.

"I think ... we beat it," the Doctor replied simply. "That's good enough for me."

"It said I was going to die in battle," Rose insisted, her brown eyes wide as she watched him, desperate for him to contradict the beast's words and prove the universe wrong.

"Then it lied," he stated with firm confidence, looking straight into her eyes and opening his mind fully to her so that she would know beyond a doubt the depth of his sincerity.

Because the Doctor knew a thing or two about lies - he lived and breathed them. So much of his nine-hundred years of life had revolved around them - it was a necessity, considering the many, dangerous secrets that he kept (both from himself and others). That's why the beast in the pit hadn't affected him the way that it had all of the others - he had recognized immediately how the creature twisted the truth to create fear and discord (an old but dangerously effective trick).

He simply had to believe (_had_ to) that the monster's threat was simply one more example of this. Surely the universe wouldn't be foolish enough to try and take Rose Tyler from him. Surely all of creation knew that if it wanted to go on existing, it would never even _dare_ to cross that line. Because the whole, undeniable _truth_ was that there was no longer any Doctor without Rose Tyler. They were two pieces of the same, single unit. Destroy one, and you destroy the other. It was a deep, abiding _fact_, and no lie - however great - would ever be able to dispute it.


	13. Love and Monsters

The Doctor and Rose's next adventure took them to Earth, so they stopped by to visit her mum just as they always did whenever they were in the neighborhood of the Solar System. However, if given the choice of facing off against a hungry, abandoned Hoix and an idle Jackie Tyler, the Doctor would gladly choose the snarling alien every time.

However, they weren't two steps into Jackie's flat before he could recognize that something was _wrong_. Rose seemed to sense it too, and she flashed the Doctor a look of concern as she cast her gaze around the quiet living space - entirely _too_ quiet, no phone or TV or chattering blonde woman anywhere to be found.

They ended up finding the elder Tyler in her room, curled up on herself with tear-stained cheeks and running mascara. "Mum? What's wrong?" Rose demanded, her tone a mix between gentle concern and firm determination.

Jackie explained haltingly between sobs the story of how she had run into a young Elton Pope and how things had quickly devolved from there. The Doctor felt his hands clenching into fists at his sides as Rose's fierce, defensive anger swept through his mind and suddenly he felt very, _very_ sorry for poor Elton. He sent Rose a small breath of calm reassurance as he silently thanked his luck that he had never had to be on the receiving end of her ire.

Defeating the alien incursion was easy enough - but, as per usual, dealing with the humans surrounding the power-hungry Abzorbaloff was anything but. He knew that Elton and Ursula might never be able to have the life that they had always dreamed about, but the Doctor hoped that he was able to give them at least some small measure of consolation anyway.

Jackie insisted that the Doctor and Rose stay for tea, and for once, the Doctor was unable to resist her. He told himself that it was for Rose's sake - it seemed that they had been going up against darker and more dangerous enemies lately and he wanted to give her some small taste of _normalcy_, if only to prove to her (and himself) that he was capable of it. However, he suspected that the real reason that he gave in had more to do with the red tint that lingered in Jackie's eyes and the watery, hopeful smile that she turned on him at the last second.

So that's how the Doctor and Rose came to be sitting side-by-side at her mother's kitchen table, talking quietly over their tea while they waited for Jackie to bring home chips.

"Do you think we could do it, Doctor?" Rose mused quietly. "Do you think you'd still love me if I was just a cement face?"

The Doctor chuckled under his breath and grabbed her hand lying on the table next to him, carefully lacing their fingers together. "Of course," he whispered in reply, making sure to meet her eye so that she would be able to see that he was sincere. He still had never told her that he loved her - not out loud, at least, and not in so many words. This small confession, however, was easy - he knew beyond a doubt that no matter what form Rose Tyler was in, he would always, _always_ want her.

"You sure?" she teased, her tongue just barely flashing between her teeth. "It wouldn't be easy, you know. You'd have to heft me around everywhere. That block of cement looked heavy ..."

"Rose, I'm a _Time Lord_," the Doctor sighed, but he couldn't stop his lips from turning slightly upwards as he met her flirtatious smirk. "Superior biology. I wouldn't be slowed down by something as simple as a block of _cement_."

He brought their joined hands to his lips so that he could gently kiss each of her knuckles, sending her a silent thought of affirmation to let her know that he was extremely glad that she was _not_, in fact, a sentient block of cement.

He was ripped away from her pleasant thoughts of warm lips and butterflies by a sudden, sharp gasp from the doorway behind them. The Doctor glanced back to see Jackie Tyler standing there, staring at them in open-mouthed shock.

"Mum?" Rose asked hesitantly.

"I _knew_ it!" Jackie hissed. Without warning, she dropped all of the take-away sacks that she had been carrying and rushed forward, ripping Rose's hand from the Doctor's and shooting him a dangerous glare at his loud noise of protest.

"When did it happen?" Jackie demanded loudly. "I knew something was different, I just _knew_ ..." But her words trailed off into silence as she twisted Rose's left hand in hers and peered curiously at it. "Wait ... You're not ..."

"Mum, what are you going on about?" Rose demanded irritatedly.

"I thought ... you had gotten married," Jackie replied haltingly. "It's just ... you two seemed so different - I could sense it from the minute you walked in here. And then I saw you sitting there, and I thought ... And, be honest, it's something that you two _would_ do - going off and getting hitched on some alien planet without even telling me about my _only daughter's_ wedding!"

"Mum, we're not married!" Rose shouted, her own voice rising in surprise as she cast the Doctor a wide-eyed glance. He could feel her absolute mortification over their bond - she was embarrassed by her mother's insinuation and hoping desperately that it wouldn't be enough to scare him off.

The Doctor bit the inside of his cheek as he quickly shuttered away his own embarrassment and shame from her. He realized belatedly that he had never explained - not _properly_, at least - that on _his_ planet, they technically _were_ married. It was just one more conversation that he had always put off for another day, not wanting to ruin what he and Rose had created for themselves. Because, if he were to be completely honest, no one back on Gallifrey had ever had anything like what he shared with Rose. Their bond ran far deeper and held much stronger than most telepathic connections, and the love that fueled it went beyond what most Time Lords would ever allow themselves to feel.

Rose immediately picked up on the Doctor's tense silence, and she narrowed her eyes on him suspiciously. He shot her a sheepish smile in response and quickly covered their bond in reassuring, loving warmth in an attempt to make up for the row that he knew was coming.

"See?" Jackie snapped, glaring between the two of them. "That thing you're doing right now - that's what I'm talking about. Anybody with eyes would have to assume ..."

"We're not married, Mum," Rose insisted, her tone going low and dangerous as she continued to stare down the Doctor.

Jackie (_thankfully_) allowed the subject to drop there, but that didn't stop the odd, sidelong glances that the Doctor continued to receive from the two Tyler women throughout the rest of the night.

He was silently hoping for a small reprieve as he wandered back into the TARDIS for the evening, but Rose followed him without pause, shutting the doors resolutely behind her. "So ... what aren't you telling me?" she demanded without preamble as soon as her mum was securely shut away outside his spaceship's doors.

The Doctor knew that there was no use lying to her - not with the bond between them revealing his every thought to her - so he stepped forward and took her hand with a heavy sigh.

"Rose, I never properly explained ..." he started awkwardly. "I'm sorry, but ... things are just _different_ on Gallifrey, I never even thought ..."

Not trusting his fool mouth to do the explaining, the Doctor reached out and mentally pulled on the telepathic bond that tied them together. _This bond is forever,_ he reminded her simply. _For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health ..._

Rose gasped as his words sparked understanding in her, and she gazed at him in the same open-mouthed shock that Jackie had used just a few hours earlier. "You're not saying ..." she muttered breathlessly.

_This bond is a telepath's version of marriage,_ the Doctor admitted silently. Out loud, he continued, "I'm sorry, Rose. I'm just not used to human customs, I didn't even think ... But it doesn't change anything - not what we have, and _certainly_ not how I feel about you ..."

Her answering flare of anger and frustration cut him deep and as she moved towards him, the Doctor flinched away on instinct, expecting the sting of a Tyler-woman slap, but he was shocked when she leapt into his arms and smothered him with a deep, heated kiss instead.

"Bloody idiot," she growled against his lips as she clung tight to him. "I _really_ hate you, sometimes."

But her warm lips and her softening thoughts told a different story, and the Doctor smiled against her mouth as he mentally chased down her more pleasant thoughts and echoed his own satisfaction back at her.

The two of them ended the night stumbling into a bed (_his_ he found out the next morning when he cared to look at such trivial facts) together where they proceeded to finally have their first _dance_ after years of repression and flirtatious banter. This, too, came so easily that the Doctor spent most of the night mentally kicking himself for waiting for so long. How much time had he wasted, trying to protect the two of them from himself? But each time he let his thoughts drift too close to self-loathing, Rose would immediately bring him back to the present with her warmth and love and promises for their shared future.

If Jackie noticed Rose's absence from her childhood bed that night, she made no mention of it, and she only gave them a passing, narrow-eyed look the next morning when the two of them stumbled into her kitchen looking both disheveled and completely sated.

"Morning," she greeted them wearily. "So? Where are you off to next, then?"

"Mum," Rose piped up, her beaming smile seeming to light up the entire kitchen as she took the Doctor's hand in hers. "We've got something to tell you ..."


	14. Fear Her

The Doctor and Rose never did end up having any sort of formal wedding ceremony (despite Jackie's _many_ protests) - it simply wasn't something that either of them cared much about The Doctor did, however (under threat of incurring Jackie's wrath), make sure to center their next few adventures around planet Earth (plus or minus a few years from the present, depending on the TARDIS's fickle whims).

However, instead of getting front-row seats to the thirtieth Olympiad, as he had planned, they ended up with a bunch of missing children posters and a neighborhood filled with terrified people, where the Doctor suddenly found himself in the unique and dangerous position of both fearing the young, ominous Chloe Webber, and fearing _for_ her.

The sheer, empty _loneliness_ in the young girl's mind cut the Doctor deep and nearly stopped his breath as he gently sorted through the surface of her memories and quickly routed out the truth of what was going on. He watched with broken hearts as the Isolus within Chloe used her to draw its family in bright, vivid red for all to see. He could empathize with the creature's deep sense of loss - the Isolus had lost millions of brothers and sisters, while he, himself, had lost billions. He could only hope that perhaps he would be able to do better for the small, fledgling alien than he had for his own people ...

* * *

Much later - after the Doctor had been forced to spend an inordinate amount of time trapped in the strange, imagination realm of a child, only to be pulled back into reality by his brilliant, beautiful bondmate a few hours later - the Doctor happily rejoiced for all of the lost things that had been found. Chloe Webber was back to a normal life with her mum, the Isolus had been reunited with its brothers and sisters, and he, himself, had Rose's mind solidly linked with his own once more, filling all of the empty spaces between his thoughts with love and peace and devotion.

The night was soured, however, by the twisting timelines that the Doctor couldn't seem to blink out of his eyes no matter how hard he tried. Even Rose's ever-present, confident optimism wasn't enough to ease his fears - not this time.

"Doctor, what did you mean by 'there's a storm approaching'?" she asked tentatively as they walked hand-in-hand back to the TARDIS under the colorful lights of the fireworks.

The Doctor sighed as he opened to door to his ship for her and fought to put all that he could see in the timelines into words. When he finally gave up on the endeavor, he settled for sending her an isolated mental snapshot of the great turmoil that he could sense up ahead (though he pointedly decided to leave out the great gap in their own timelines that seemed to loom just before them - he wasn't ready to admit that even to himself).

Rose's brow furrowed as she pondered over the image that he had revealed to her. The Doctor could sense her confused awe as she fought to make sense of the glowing gold threads of time. "Is this what you see all the time?" she finally asked, flashing him a weighted look out of the corner of her eye as he moved forward towards the familiar comfort of the TARDIS controls.

The Doctor shrugged noncommittally and murmured, "More or less, yeah."

"How do you even make sense of it all?" Rose sighed, shaking her head as she moved up to stand at his side. "There's just ... so much there."

The Doctor breathed a small huff of laughter as he shook his head at her in response. If he were still trying to push her away and keep her at arm's length, he might have casually reminded her of his "superior biology" or poked fun at her own species' lack of evolution, but they were both well past that - so instead he filled her mind with a wave of gentle affection and let her knew that he would never get tired of the way that she so easily asked questions and looked at the universe with such a sense of awe and wonder.

However, Rose didn't smile up at him or telepathically answer his mental touch the way that he was expecting her to. Instead, she simply stared down hard at the TARDIS controls and began to reach out and timidly test the bond between them.

"Rose?" the Doctor asked softly, his own brows drawing together as he watched her curiously.

"Doctor, have you ... have you been married before?" she finally asked, her gaze meeting his hesitantly, as though she had to force herself to do it.

The Doctor immediately felt everything inside of him tense the way that it usually did when he was going up against some sort of dangerous alien threat. His first instinct, of course, was to fall back into their old patterns of skirting around the truth and lie to her, but he knew that it was pointless to keep secrets from Rose - not anymore - and it would likely only hurt her even more.

So when he finally settled on the truth, the Doctor attempted to keep it as simple and factual as possible - just like his first marriage had been.

"Yes," he replied tersely as he met her gaze with steely resolve, "back on Gallifrey. It wasn't my choice, but marriages there rarely are. It was political in nature, nothing more than a title, really."

Rose nodded understanding and lowered her eyes, not quite managing to hide her insecure doubts from him in time before they snuck through across the bond.

The Doctor smiled down sadly at his perfect, amazing human girl who never really was very good at judging her own worth. Without hesitation, he pulled her closer with one arm wrapped loosely around her waist as he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her right temple.

_None of that matters, though, Rose,_ he insisted silently as he buried his nose in her hair and revealed to her the well of love that he carried within him - all o fit exclusively and rightfully hers. This _is what true marriage is,_ he reminded her, gently caressing the bond between them. _And I've never shared this with anyone else_ (_And never will,_ his own traitorous hearts added as an afterthought).

Rose sighed as she turned slightly into him, but she only brought one hand up to finger the lapels of his jacket instead of throwing both arms around him the way that he had wanted her to.

_What about your kids?_ she asked silently.

_Gone. With everyone else,_ the Doctor replied ruefully, his old hurt quietly aching like a big lump of scar tissue within his mind.

Rose did hug him, then - her arms finally winding up around his shoulders as she pressed hard kisses against his jaw and neck. Her own thoughts ached to know the depth and pain of his loss and his precious, amazing human girl wished desperately that she could somehow put it all back to rights for him again.

_You're all that I need now, Rose,_ he insisted gratefully as he wrapped his own arms tightly around her middle and allowed himself the satisfaction of sinking deep into his bondmate's mind. _And you're more than enough,_ he added as her thoughts turned towards insecurity once more and she began to doubt her own ability to fill such a giant, gaping wound.

"I'm not letting you go," Rose insisted quietly, her voice coming out muffled against his shoulder as she squeezed her arms tightly around him. "Whatever it was that you saw in those timelines, it doesn't matter. Nothing is going to tear us apart." _I won't let it,_ she thought stubbornly.

The Doctor breathed out a small sigh as he buried his nose in her neck and silently begged, just this once, to be proven wrong.


	15. Army of Ghosts & Doomsday (Part One)

The Doctor knew that something was wrong the moment that Jackie first showed them one of the supposed "ghosts" that seemed to have the entire human race completely infatuated. However, it wasn't until they stumbled upon Torchwood that the Doctor began to realize how very horribly, completely _wrong_ it all was - in fact, it was drifting dangerously outside of the parameters of _wrong_ and bordering on _terrifying_.

He tried desperately to keep Rose out of it and safe (the unfurling timelines in his head urging him to keep her away from _all danger_ as much as possible), but as per usual, she refused to heed his warning. Through their bond, he knew the exact second that she stepped off of the TARDIS and set off through Torchwood Tower on her own, intent to explore and find more information about what was going on.

The Doctor's thoughts instantly flooded with fear and he silently begged for her to turn back around and stay hidden, but she shuttered her mind away from him and gave him the mental equivalent of a pat on the head and a quick reminder to stop worrying before their connection went horribly, eerily silent.

The only thing that managed to pull his attention away from actively seeking Rose out and attempting to use every trick that he could think of in order to get her to open back up to him again was the sight of the empty white wall that Yvonne led him to. The very air around the place tasted metallic and energized and so drastically, dreadfully _wrong_ that it made the Doctor shiver. Through his 3D glasses, he could see that the wall was covered in void stuff and bristling with a dark, ominous energy.

More than all of that, however, were the timelines that converged on this spot in space. There were so many of them - all of them frayed almost beyond recognition and twisted together into patterns that the Doctor had never seen before in over nine-hundred years of time traveling. The sight of them behind his eyelids made his head spin and his stomach turn, and he found that he was more eager than ever to find Rose and get as _far away_ from this place as possible.

He got to see her one last time - just a quick, thirty-seven second moment on Yvonne's small laptop screen (because _of course_ she ended up getting caught - did he try to warn her?) - before the ghost shift started up again and all hell began to break loose as the Doctor and Yvonne stumbled upon a small group of cybermen hiding in one of Torchwood's many back rooms. Still, the brief moment was enough for Rose to relax her hold on the shields that she had put up around her mind, and as the entire building suddenly descended into chaos, her fear and adrenaline opened their bond the rest of the way as she reached out for him on instinct.

He could see through Rose that Mickey had returned, and the Doctor suspected that the infamous Idiot and these few cybermen weren't the only things that were sneaking through across the void and popping up where they didn't belong. His suspicions were (unfortunately) confirmed as the cybermen admitted that the void ship was not their own, and then Rose's adrenaline spiked as one simple word ran through her mind on an endless, terrified loop - _exterminate_.

Despite everything going on around them, though, the Doctor couldn't help but smile as he felt his bondmate's flare of righteous anger and bold confidence over their shared connection. The thought crossed his mind unbidden as the Doctor eagerly embraced her fearless shock of adrenaline - _where had this woman been during the Time War_? He might have quite enjoyed watching this one, human girl put thousands of stuffy Time Lord generals and tacticians to shame as she faced off against the oncoming dalek fleets with nothing but her brash sense of hope and confidence. It would have been a sight to behold.

Her mother, however, was far less assured as they faced off against the dual threat of invasion.

"I brought you here, I'll get you both out - you and your daughter," the Doctor vowed solemnly as he met her eyes with a firm, no-nonsense expression.

However, the flare of confidence that he had received from Rose just a few moments before quickly dissipated in the wake of the cybermen publicly threatening the entire human race and the daleks sacrificing an innocent man simply to gain information.

The Doctor gritted his teeth as he watched the laptop screen that the Cyberleader had commandeered from Yvonne light up with an image of the four daleks hidden deep within the bowels of the Torchwood Tower. The argument between the two killer species really would have been funny under any other circumstances, and the Doctor dearly wished that he could laugh, but his hearts were pounding far too fast and fear was slowly choking him as he was forced to simply sit back and watch the two species antagonize one another.

It was Jackie's terrified, whispered words that finally broke him out of his trance, and the Doctor reached for Rose over their bond at the exact same moment that he used her mum's cell phone to call her. _Pick up,_ he begged her silently. Her own thoughts were so tightly-wound with fear that it was difficult to understand what was going on on her end with the daleks.

Thankfully, Rose seemed to catch his mental plea and she breathed a few deep, calming breaths and let her phone connect to his so that the Doctor could clearly hear both sides of the conversation going on between two of his oldest foes.

He slid the 3D glasses back over his eyes as he watched the two creatures face off against one another. They were all of them bristling with void stuff, and the seed of a plan was beginning to hatch within his mind. The only thing that he needed to figure out now was what this "_genesis ark_" of the daleks' was.

The Doctor fought desperately to keep his hopes up when Rose finally ended the call and the cybermen and the daleks determined to face off against one another. All things considered, he supposed that he should have been grateful that the two deadly robotic races seemed insistent on remaining enemies. The Doctor wasn't sure if any planet in _any_ universe would be able to withstand their onslaught if the daleks and cybermen ever actually decided to team up with one another.

However, as the cybermen swiftly separated him from Jackie and began to prepare her and the rest of Torchwood's human employees for upgrading, the Doctor felt his hopes beginning to waver. How was one man - even one as clever and as brilliant as himself - meant to save his bondmate, her mother, and the entire rest of the world from two of the greatest, most powerful armies in the universe?

Thankfully, they were odds that the Doctor always seemed particularly good at playing, and he was more determined than ever to ensure that they would all make it out of this one alive.


	16. Army of Ghosts & Doomsday (Part Two)

"You are proof," the Cyberleader later declared without any sort of prompting, "that emotions destroy you."

And, for the first time in his long life, the Doctor had to admit that the metal robot had a point. His emotions had always been an issue, ever since he had been a child - it was one of the reasons why he had originally left Gallifrey. And why did he even bother? What had emotions ever done for him except cause pain, hurt, and loss?

_They also bring love, patience, and forgiveness,_ his bond hummed in reply as Rose reached with concerned curiosity when his morose mood began to seep across their connection.

_And hope,_ he thought as he silently embraced her and solemnly vowed to not stop running until he had her back in his arms again. Always, always hope - especially when it came to Rose.

And it seemed that the universe was content to reward that hope as a group of six people dressed all in black and outfitted with guns and gas masks suddenly shimmered into existence out of thin air right before his eyes and immediately blasted all surrounding cybermen into smithereens.

The Doctor was shocked to see the familiar face of Jake Simmonds among them, but he was even more shocked when the young man flashed him an over-confident smile and hit the yellow button hanging from around his neck, which immediately transported them across dimensions to his own parallel version of Torchwood.

The Doctor barely had time to blink before the queasy feeling of being in an alternate universe hit him square in the gut and his mental bond with Rose was quickly and efficiently severed. The emptiness that he had felt in his head whenever he had been separated from her during one of their adventures in their home universe paled in comparison to what he felt now.

The broken bond was a physical, open wound in his mind and his ache for her nearly knocked the wind from his lungs as he stumbled clumsily on his feet and attempted to settle his dizzying thoughts. The Doctor pressed the heel of his hand to his temple in pain, as though it was a physical injury and he needed to stem the blood flow.

He was distantly aware of the fact that Jake was describing something to him, but the Doctor could suddenly care less about the impending collapse of all reality. All he knew was that he needed to get back to Rose - _now_.

"I've got to get back," the Doctor insisted desperately. "Rose is in danger, and her mother."

But then suddenly Pete Tyler himself - Vitex millionaire and apparent Torchwood executive - came strolling in and the Doctor silently rolled his eyes and wondered how many more times the combined universes were going to force him to watch this one, simple man die. Pete's easy dismissal of Rose and Jackie made the Doctor grit his teeth together in frustration as he silently cursed the entire human species (and the male sex specifically) for being incapable of thinking outside the parameters of a single reality.

However, Pete was good for one thing, at least - in that he was able to give the Doctor the full background story of the current mess that they were dealing with. It became clear relatively quickly that the dimension jumping was causing a huge disturbance in the fabric of reality and soon every parallel world would begin to suffer for it. That was, if any of the parallel worlds managed to survive the daleks and cybermen, who seemed determine to continue punching their way through reality in an attempt to exterminate/delete all sentient existence in their wake.

The Doctor shivered when they finally returned to his home universe. He could sense that Rose was still in the building - hovering somewhere just outside of his reach - but has he had suspected, their bond didn't immediately snap back into place, despite what he may have wished. With their connection so completely and viciously severed, he knew that they would need time and proximity to rebuild what had been broken.

He couldn't help but breathe a small sigh of relief when he finally strolled into the room that the daleks had taken up headquarters in and had the chance to lay eyes on her once more - Rose _and_ Mickey, both of them still alive and well, at least for now. The wide smile she flashed him the second that her eyes landed on him gave the Doctor the swell of confidence that he needed to face off against one of his greatest foes, but he could see the questioning fear in her gaze as well. She had felt the bond snap just as severely as he had, and she had no idea what was going on.

"How are you?" he asked, grinning teasingly to disguise the fear and pain that still hummed in the back of his mind where he knew that his bondmate was meant to be.

"Oh, same old, you know," she replied casually, her smile not dimming in the least as he came to a halt as near to her as he dared. He knew that one wrong move on either of their parts could cause more pain than comfort with their broken mental bond lying in ruin between them.

But the Doctor's own discomfort had to be pushed aside as he faced off against the four daleks before him, who revealed themselves to be none other than the Cult of Skaro. Suddenly, he felt even more desperate than ever to learn the true meaning and purpose behind the Time Lord device that they referred to simply as the "genesis ark".

Strategizing against daleks had never been a particularly difficult task - they all basically had the same motivation and function: exterminate anything that was not dalek and destroy anything that got in their way. But the members of the Cult of Skaro were another story altogether - they had been created, brought up, and raised to _think_. The Doctor had never met them in the flesh before, but he thought that facing off against these four unassuming robots might just be his greatest feat yet.

However, even if the Doctor was never able to accomplish the monumental task that loomed before him, he could at least be satisfied with the consolation prize of being responsible for the reuniting of Rose's parents. He wished very dearly that he had still been connected with Rose in that moment, just to be able to share with her in her emotions as she watched her mother and father from two different universes embrace one another.

The Doctor had to settle, instead, for taking her hand in his and meeting her eyes in a silent vow to fix all that had been broken between them. As Rose squeezed his fingers and met his gaze, he could feel her attempting to reach for his thoughts with her own, but he had already constructed a careful barrier around his mind, burying his severed link deep within where she wouldn't be able to find it.

Rose furrowed her brow at him in silent question, but he knew that there wasn't time to explain to her the intricacies of telepathic bonds and how mending them could be like setting a broken bone - getting it wrong could cause devastating, irreparable effects later.

So the Doctor was forced to settle once again as he leaned forward and pressed a quick, comforting kiss to her forehead instead. "Later," was his only whispered promise as he squeezed her fingers tight and then rushed forward to lead them all off further into the Torchwood Tower.

The seed of an idea in his head was beginning to take root and the Doctor thought that he just might be able to save all of them, the entire planet, and all of reality along with it, if he could just manage to work out the last, drastic kinks - namely, how to keep Rose at his side when the universe seemed determined to rip them apart.


	17. Army of Ghosts & Doomsday (Part Three)

Stage one of the Doctor's plan: retrieve the magnaclamps that he had spotted in one of the Torchwood warehouses when he had been traveling around with Yvonne earlier in the day before everything started to fall apart. Easier said than done when a full-on war was being waged around them - two separate armies and four armed daleks all fighting to wipe each other out of existence.

However, his handy 3D glasses gave him hope as the Doctor covertly ducked his head back into the firefight and noticed the tiny floating particles of void stuff that seemed to track every movement that the daleks and cybermen made. Stage one of the Doctor's plan: successfully completed.

Stage two of the Doctor's plan: find out what was in the "genesis ark" that the Cult of Skaro was toting around like a trophy. To do that, he had to drag the entire Tyler family, Mickey, and Jake all up to the top floor of the tower. Back in Yvonne's office, they all watched in wide-eyed horror as the device floating above London slowly slid open and then began to spin, spewing out more daleks at every turn.

"It's bigger on the inside," the Doctor breathed in quiet disbelief. "It's a prison ship."

"How many daleks?" Rose asked warily, flashing him a concerned, sideways glance.

"Millions."

Stage two of the Doctor's plan: successfully completed, though the end result was far less than ideal.

Which brought them all to stage three of his plan: don't let Rose catch on to what was going to happen next.

"We're going home," Pete Tyler stated definitively, outfitting each of the humans in the room with one of the yellow button-pendants that would transport them back to his parallel world and out of harm's way. "Doctor?" he asked, casting the other man a pointed look to let him know that it was his turn to do his job and save them all.

The Doctor was only too happy to oblige, and he turned to face them all with a wide smile, making sure to keep his own doubts and fears buried deep within where no one would be able to see them. "Oh, I'm ready," he stated eagerly.

And then, he was off like a shot as he quickly and efficiently implemented stage three and explained to them all how he was going to pull every single last dalek and cyberman back into the abyss of nothing that awaited them in the void. But Rose - good, strong, beautiful, impossible, painfully clever Rose - instantly saw the gaping hole in his plan that he was fighting so desperately to conceal.

Stage three of the Doctor's plan: horrible disaster.

"But, it's ... like you said - we've all got void stuff. Me, too, cause we went to that parallel world," she muttered slowly. "We're all contaminated, we'll get pulled in."

The Doctor stepped closer as she examined her own hand curiously through his 3D glasses. When she finally took them off and looked up at him questioningly, he forced himself to meet her gaze as he replied simply, "That's why you've got to go."

This last leap of logic seemed to be the only one that his clever Rose couldn't force herself to make, and she watched him in wary confusion as the Doctor attempted to busy himself with the magnaclamps that he had nicked from the Torchwood warehouse. "I'm supposed to go ..." she murmured in disbelief.

"Yeah," he replied, pointedly not meeting her gaze.

"To another world, and then it gets sealed off ..."

"Yeah." The magnaclamps were out of his hands now, so the Doctor moved to the controls that operated the breach and busied his fidgeting hands with that instead.

"Forever." Her tone had taken on a sort of desperate helplessness, and the Doctor instantly felt all the rest of his words dry up and die on his tongue. Every other time she had spoken that word to him, it had been a promise, a sacred oath, a declaration of love and eternity. Now, it was a plea, a cry for help, and he had no answer for it.

"That's not going to happen," she insisted, breathing a small, disbelieving laugh as she shook her head at him in stubborn refusal.

"We haven't got time to argue," Pete reminded them all sternly. But he really should have known better - the Tyler women were not to be bossed, and emotions began to run high as the three members of the small, broken family argued about what to do next, as though any of them really had a choice.

But Pete and the Doctor both knew that the choice had already been made - it was say goodbye forever, or face eternity in a timeless, empty abyss. Rose's desperate, teary words still cut the Doctor to his hearts, though - and each step that he took closer to her was more painful than the last as he deftly slipped the chain of the dimension-hopping device around her neck, and then watched as Pete ejected them all back into safety.

The Doctor's last glimpse of the love of his lives was of her wide brown eyes as she turned on him in surprise, and then her precious voice was cut off mid-sentence as she shimmered out of view and out of his life forever. He supposed that he should have been grateful to Jake for taking him to the parallel world against his wishes earlier - with their bond already broken, the Doctor didn't have to suffer the pain of a severed connection again as Rose disappeared for the last time.

However, he still felt her loss from this universe like a punch in the gut and the Doctor stood frozen, staring blankly at the empty space that Rose had inhabited just a moment earlier.

Unfortunately (_was_ it unfortunate? He still couldn't quite seem to decide between his traitorous hearts and his head), he wasn't left waiting for long before Rose was suddenly blinking back into existence in exactly the same spot where she had disappeared just moments before. She was murmuring to herself as she looked around in wide-eyed confusion, trying to get a grip on her bearings.

As soon as her whiskey-colored eyes landed on the Doctor once more, she frowned, narrowing her eyes in a look of frustration that he had (unfortunately - _definitely_ unfortunately) grown accustomed to seeing over the years.

The Doctor immediately rushed to her side, intent on having a good row and then forcing her back to the parallel world where she belonged, but he didn't have the chance to get even a single word out before Rose had her hands around the back of his neck and she was pressing a hard, angry kiss to his lips.

Their bond snapped back into place immediately - the shields that the Doctor had attempted to construct against her instantly dissolving into ash as though they never were. He grunted against her mouth and Rose gasped at the quick stab of pain that shot through both of their minds as the open wound of their bond was seared shut and their connection was abruptly reestablished.

Rose's thoughts came rushing back to him like a whirlwind, filling the Doctor's head with her presence and immediately drowning out all else. _How_ dare _you?_ her mind demanded, her own hurt stinging him as he automatically embraced her. The Doctor welcomed her anger and chastisement without argument - it was nice to have a second voice in his head that wasn't his own confirming to him what an idiot he was. Besides, it wasn't as if he didn't deserve every last bit of it.

So the Doctor swallowed Rose's bitterness and echoed it with his own, kissing her back just as hard until the rush of their rejoined bond finally dimmed and he felt as though he could breathe normally again.

As soon as he was certain that they were securely linked together once more, the Doctor quickly removed his arms from around Rose's waist and grabbed her roughly by the shoulders instead as he stepped back to meet her eye with a heavy, severe look.

"Once the breach collapses, that's it," he snapped angrily, quickly reminding her of her poorly-made, rash decision. Why had she chosen him over her own family? Why did she _always_ have to choose _him_? Didn't she know how useless he was? Hadn't she realized by now that he would only ever let her down? "You will never be able to see her again - your own _mother_!" he added bitterly.

"I made my choice a long time ago," Rose replied evenly, her voice low and serious as she stared him straight in the eye, not allowing any room for doubt or misinterpretation between them, "and I'm never gonna leave you."

The Doctor's hearts stuttered to a stop, and with their bond freshly renewed between them, there was no hiding from her his breathless awe as he stared down at the precious human girl who had saved his life so many times and in so many ways that he didn't even deserve.

"So what can I do to help?" she offered quietly.

The Doctor's fingers tightened around her arms as he glared down at her and silently begged Rose to rethink her decision and go back where it was safe. However, he knew from experience not to argue, and he couldn't deny the foolish, reckless part of him that was so, so satisfied to have her back within his reach again.

"_Better with two,_" she had told him, back when she still hadn't even really known who he was. The Doctor hadn't been able to deny the wisdom of her words then, and he certainly couldn't deny them now. So he resigned himself to Rose's stubborn will and told himself that he was angry about it as he snapped out orders and told her what to do next, but he knew that he wasn't fooling anybody - least of all himself - as he flooded her mind with love and gratitude and silently begged her to stay.


	18. Army of Ghosts & Doomsday (Part Four)

The Doctor knew what was going to happen the moment that Rose's lever became unlocked and slowly started to drift forward. The mess of tangled timelines that had been swirling around the white-walled room all day suddenly fell away, leaving behind one, true reality that there was now no way of stopping.

Still, as he watched her falling through space and helplessly being pulled into the void - the only woman he'd ever loved, his bondmate, his perfect, beautiful, human _Rose_ \- the Doctor prayed to anything in any universe that might hear him and begged for any other reality to take its place.

His prayers were answered in the unlikely form of Pete Tyler, who shimmered into existence just in time to catch Rose and instantly jettison them back into his parallel world. The last look that the Doctor got of her was a wide, fearful look as she glanced over her shoulders and met his eyes one last time. She didn't say a single word, but her mind screamed in desperation, and he was quite sure that his own thoughts echoed the sentiment exactly.

This time, when the bond broke, it almost felt like a release of sorts. It was the final blow before death - the last twist of pain before numb peace took over and washed away everything else. The Doctor shuffled towards the wall where the portal had been just a moment ago and stared hard at the place where a single, golden timeline disappeared into nothingness, its end cut off just as resolutely as his severed bond had been.

With everything in the Doctor's thoughts reaching desperately for a bondmate who was no longer there, he could just manage to make out the last remaining traces of Rose's mind. The breach had closed, but it hadn't stitched itself completely back together just yet. There were still tiny pockets - air bubbles of space left between his world and hers, and the Doctor pressed himself against the empty wall and used all of his remaining energy to reach out towards her.

He had been absolutely bristling and overflowing with words ever since he had come into this body, but he found that in this crucial moment, he had no more words left to give. Or rather, there were _too many_ words and not enough _time_. The Doctor was instantly filled with a deep sense of self-loathing as he realized that he had unknowingly put himself into the exact same situation that he had been in the _last_ time that he had been forced to say goodbye to Rose. He spent so much time talking and filling up their spare hours with mindless, useless chatter and none of it ever meant anything and now it was too late _again_ and he had no one to blame but himself.

He still couldn't force himself to say goodbye, either (the one word he could never say, not to Rose - _never_ to Rose) - so instead, the Doctor flooded the thin connection that they had left with all of the unspoken things that he had never been able to force himself to say out loud and the raw emotion that lay behind each and every single word.

Rose's thoughts still clung tight to him, refusing to let him go, but the breach gave them no choice as the wall between the two worlds suddenly came to a full and definitive close.

* * *

He never stopped trying, though. Even though the Doctor knew that he would never be able to look Rose Tyler in the eye and tell her "goodbye", he never once stopped fighting to get back to her in an attempt to do just that.

When he finally managed to find the last, fading doorway leading from his world to hers, the Doctor took only enough time to ensure that no sentient life existed in the nearby star system before forcing the star's core into collapse, creating a massive supernova powerful enough to send his projection to Rose in her world.

She was there, just as he knew that she would be - staring up at him as though she didn't dare believe the proof of her own eyes.

"You look like a ghost," she muttered in dismay.

The Doctor immediately boosted the signal to rectify the problem, but it didn't make the situation any easier as she stepped closer and looked up at him with an expression of wild, desperate longing.

"Can I ...?" she asked hesitantly, raising her hand to his cheek in a familiar gesture.

"I'm still just an image," the Doctor reminded her, shaking his head sadly and desperately attempting to remember the sensation of her touch against his skin and thoughts. "No touch."

"How long have we got?" she asked, her voice coming out uneven and choked with emotion.

"About two minutes," he replied, his mind instantly taking him back to the last time that he had had two minutes to say goodbye to Rose Tyler. He knew that he had to do better this time - he _had_ to make this one _count_.

But the Doctor found himself filling the time as he always did - with his useless, _pointless_ banter. He was happy to hear that there were more Tylers on the way, though (and even happier to hear that it as _not_ Rose who was expecting), and he was immensely satisfied that Rose had managed to find herself a job at Torchwood doing what she always did, defending the earth.

"Am I ever going to see you again?" she asked, her voice breaking over her tears and hitting the Doctor like a knife right between his hearts.

"You can't," he replied quietly, fisting his hands at his sides in an attempt to resist the urge to reach out and brush away her tears.

"What are you gonna do?" she asked desperately.

"Oh, I've got the TARDIS - same old life, last of the Time Lords," the Doctor muttered dismissively, hating every single word that slipped through his lips that weren't the five words that he most desperately needed to say.

Rose got to them first, though - just as she always did. It took her a few attempts to force them out, but she got there in the end. "I love you," she sobbed, smiling up at him through her tears and silently begging him to respond - just this once, just this one last time, before it was too late ...

The three words hit the Doctor harder than he had expected them to, and he floundered for a moment as he tried to force himself to remember how to reciprocate. "Quite right, too," he sighed quietly. "And, I suppose ... if it's my last chance to say it ..."

_Words, words, so many words and not enough time ..._ his mind cried out desperately as his own useless tongue stuttered and fumbled with the consonants and the lump in his throat threatened to choke them out altogether. Their bond was severed - the Doctor had no crutch that he could use now to express to her the depth and truth of his emotions. He knew that he _had_ to use his words, if only he could find the courage to speak them ...

"Rose Tyler, I ..." But in the blink of an eye, the connection was gone, and Rose disappeared from before him like a wisp of smoke slipping through his fingers. He knew that at least three of the five words had reached her, but the last two - the _most important_ two - were still sitting there on the tip of his tongue, begging to be released.

The Doctor forced himself to swallow them, hating the way that they tasted bitter in his throat and settled like a weight in his gut. But he knew that he deserved every last second of the painful torture, and in that moment, he determinedly refused to let those two words be spoken out loud ever again unless they were being given directly to Rose Tyler herself. Those two words - the last two, most important words in all of creation - were hers and hers alone. So the Doctor silently and efficiently bottled them up inside of his hearts and prepared to preserve them into eternity if he had to.

Reason told him that he would die with those words still sitting heavy in his chest, waiting around hopelessly for the day when they could finally be released, but the Doctor had always had a bit of an issue with listening to reason. He decided that perhaps, just this one last time, he would tell reason to sod off. He would keep those last two words safe, protected, and cherished until the day when he was finally able to see her again, and he would tell her - once and for all - the last two words that they both needed to hear.

_Love you, love you, love you - to eternity and back, always and forever, even when it hurts, even when it makes no sense - Rose Tyler, I love you ..._

* * *

A/N: Thank you so, so much to everyone who has favorited, followed, and commented on this story! There will be a final fic in this series summarizing series 3 & 4 and ending in a Journey's End fix-it, so stay tuned. There's a happy ending coming, I promise!

If you'd like, you can support this fic and others on AO3 and Wattpad, and you can follow me on Tumblr chasingthecosmos.


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